This was our second trip to Venice in two years, but the first one without diapers, strollers, and a booster seat. Consequently, we were eminently portable, and when the bus dropped us off in Piazzale Roma after the usual nightmarish overnight flight from Toronto, I only had to strap on our large convertible travel pack. N had a regulation-size carry-on on her back, and the kids walked free.
At ten-thirty in the morning, it was already over twenty-five degrees, but I didn't have time to work up a sweat during the short walk to the Hotel Marin, behind San Simeone Piccolo just across from the train station. This was our one-night stopgap until we got our apartment on Saturday afternoon. Incredibly, the room was ready after a short wait. The beds took up most of the room, which was hot even though the windows were open. But it was clean and functional, not depressing for the L215,000 it cost us, and the proprietors (perhaps to put the lie to what I wrote above) were friendly and helpful.
We quickly threw together a minimal day pack and headed out. A, nearly six and more adaptable, could remember details of our last visit (later in the day, she would unbidden point out the bench in Campo Santa Margherita on which we rested in 96) but Z, three and resistant to change, was dragging her heels despite having had the most sleep of all of us. Neither had much patience for the frequent backtracking necessary until we got our bearings.
We lunched at a pizzeria in Campo San Toma - competent if unexciting food, but delivered with such an air of studied indifference (just a hairsbreadth this side of contempt) that it made me glad I'd soon have a kitchen. Then it was back to the hotel for a much-needed three-hour nap; it must have been close to thirty degrees at this point. Our 96 trip had been in late June, a cooler time.
At five the heat had broken somewhat, the sun more oblique. We meandered southwest, stopping to feed the kids gelato in the shadow of the Frari, and then down to Campo San Pantalon (with a brief glimpse at the huge ceiling painting by Fumiani in the church) and through Campo San Barnaba to the Accademia. The museum was open surprisingly late, but we weren't ready for it, ever though A complained that we'd been in Venice a whole day and we'd hardly seen any art.
Instead, we turned back, and retraced our steps to just south of the Frari, where at seven the Trattoria della Donna Onesta was open for us. "Spaghetti with clams, or with squid ink?" I asked A. "You make risotto with clams at home, but squid ink is special," she replied. So that it was, with antipasto di pesce and risotto di pesce for two. We had a surprisingly good and relatively inexpensive (L71,000 with water and wine) meal in the nicely appointed air-conditioned room.
Then it was back through twilight streets to our non-air-conditioned hotel. We took all our clothes off, slathered ourselves with insect repellent, turned out the lights, opened all the windows, and fell asleep.