We thought we were getting up early this morning, only to find it was already nine o’clock.  A leisuely breakfast was followed, at last, by showers. All would have been fine except I flooded the bathroom because I had the shower pointed in the wrong direction!  Oh well, live and learn. We finally headed out around noon and first went to the Tim store to buy our Italian SIM card. The store is in the Rialto area and we were surprised that we remembered so many stores and places along the way. I guess we explored on this side of the Grand Canal more than we had thought. Going through one of the small campos, we came across an elderly man playing a Balkan violin. Alan talked to him a bit about it. He was Austrian and was speaking in German to a German tourist.  He explained to me in Italian that the instrument has 11 sympathetic strings and 3 strings that are bowed. The music was quite nice.

Onward we went and after getting the SIM, went to the spice store behind the Rialto Market.  Unfortunately, it was closed and, by then, I was a little testy from hunger.  We refound one of our favorite restaurants Al Garanghelo (thanks, Nan), and had a large, late lunch there.  I had fried calamari with polenta and Alan had his favorite fish soup.  It took him over an hour to eat it since he had fish to bone, clams and mussells to shell, and a giant shrimp to peel.  For the first time in our 40+ years together, I was finished eating long before he was.

Before

After

We finished after 3 o’clock and stopped at the vegetable part of the Rialto Market.  Almost all the stands were closed, but we were able to get some gorgeous tomatoes, fennel, peppers, cauliflower, leeks, and carrots.  Our favorite cheese shop Casa di Parmigiano was still open so we stopped there, along with every Australian tourist in Venice.  We bought some cheeses and some salume (cold cuts) and had that and olives and some Soave wine Alan bought later.  Just right after a midday feast.