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Saturday, 22 August 1998

I got up around seven-thirty and headed for the Rialto, leaving some money for N to go and buy breakfast with the kids. There were more vendors out at the market, though I had hoped to get meat and cheese at Gastronomia Aliani (a favourite supplier in 96), and it seemed to be closed for the holidays (or at least whatever was at where I thought it was was closed).

I bought vitello di mare, a fish mentioned in Plotkin's review of the Trattoria Anzolo Raffael, beans, figs, salad, peaches, plums, and tomatoes. At a small stall I bought some aged Asiago (stagionato) and some mozzarella di bufala. On the way back I stopped at our neighbourhood salumeria and bought prosciutto and salame "nostrane".

On returning I discovered that we had closed the windows too late the night before, and a mosquito or two had gotten in. A had a bite right on the tip of her nose, making her look like Rudolph, and Z's left eye was swollen shut. After breakfast, we let the kids play for a while, and then started down to the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. This time it was open, and the kids enjoyed the Carpaccio paintings, recognizing not only the one of Saint George slaying the dragon, but Saint Jerome bringing the lion to the monastery, and even Saint Augustine in his study.

We walked down to San Zaccaria and took the 82 vaporetto in the direction of Giudecca. It was quite sunny but breezy on the water, which was choppy, and we got seats in the open back of the boat. The view was somewhat marred by the sight of two huge cruise ships moored in the vicinity of San Sebastiano. We got off at the Zattere stop, after all the Giudecca stops, and had a short walk to the Peggy Guggenheim collection, instead of a long haul through the vicinity of Piazza San Marco.

The kids enjoyed the sculpture garden as before, but there were signs that A was starting to pick up some fine details of modern art. "Who was that artist who dripped paint on the canvas?" she asked, and was pleased to hear that there were five Jackson Pollock canvases further on. That was her favourite room, but before we reached it, she turned a corner and gasped, then said, "Oh! Cornell!" at the sight of three Joseph Cornell boxes sitting on a shelf. Z, not to be outdone, proclaimed her favourite painting to be a Magritte-esque canvas of four women turning into (or out of) trees, by Paul Delvaux, titled "The Break of Day". In 96 it had been hot and the kids fidgety in the museum, except when outside; but this time not only were they more involved in the art, but it was so much hotter that the air-conditioning was on. Perhaps this helped their focus.

We had lunch at the nearby Taverna San Trovaso, on the canal of the same name. N and I had seppie con polenta (light on the polenta, unfortunately, but heavy on the seppie) and the kids had a frittura mista. I remember these, in 82, being a genuine mixture of odd little fish from the lagoon. Now they are all pretty standard mixtures of squid tentacles, rings, and the occasional shrimp and chunk of filleted fish. I don't see any small fish mixtures in the market, so they are either fished out or protected by law now.

Up the Accademia bridge and into Campo San Stefano for, what else, Paolin gelato. Then a long trudge home, through the chain of linked campi (S. Angelo, Manin, S. Luca) that run up the spine of the sestiere towards the Rialto. We tried to keep to the edges, in the shade, for it was getting quite hot. As we approached Campo S. Bartolomeo, we had to pass through some pretty crowded areas, but after Campo S. Lio the traffic thinned out again, and we were in the home stretch. We weren't making any false turns now, and only rarely needed to look at the map.

Z and I napped, while N played cards with A. We bathed the kids, let the heat break somewhat, and then walked down the Strada Nova to have pizza at Vesuvio, a place on the Rio Terra Farsetti where we had tried to eat in 96 but were turned away. This time it was our turn to watch others being turned away, as the place filled up shortly after we arrived (a little before eight). The pizza wasn't bad but nothing to write home about, and served with the efficient indifference I had come to recognize.

After dinner we walked up to the Cannaregio neighbourhood where we had our apartment in 96. The sun had set, the sky was coloured, and reflected in the long, straight stretches of canal. N reflected that our current apartment was more centrally located and had more amenities but that she missed the sense of a neighbourhood and the vistas of our former place. We decided to come back with N's father and have dinner at one of the restaurants with tables out on the fondamenta.

We treated the kids, who had walked a lot, to another gelato at Il Gelatone on Strada Nova, and then made our way back to the apartment through darkened and mostly empty streets.

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