Walked the Cannaregio region today – in fact we walked miles today, Cannaregio, west to east, Castello then all the way bag by the most circuitous way possible.
Cannaregio is very different to the more tourist trod areas with some wider canal sidewalks and more modern apartments initially, changing to some of the narrowest and oldest parts of Venice moving east.
We coffee-d in the sun on a long open canal, at the end of which we could see across to the mainland and to snow on the Alps. A procession of water taxis passed, the lead boat with a tenor belting out Italian opera, but into a radio so all the following boats could hear – his voice rang out across canal as the procession passed – a round of applause from the final boat as the last note faded and they passed out into the lagoon.
Overnight water vapour off the lagoon wets the flagstones and in the coldest part of the morning they freeze. Most bridges have sacks of salt at the bottom, and are salted in the mornings. This morning in the shade, the stones are white with frost and slippery – we skate along a little in our boots.
We pass through Mori Piazza and passed the home of the Artist Tintoretto and later into a beautiful big sunny square where a young man lobbying for an independent Venice (independent of Italy, not necessarily the EU) tells his story and a young lady with a beautiful old pugnose (who is very slow and only eats and sleeps – he is like family), asks about the bush fires and explains, as a vet, how she lost all her expensive equipment in the last flood.
We look for a restaurant recommended by the girl at Osteria GG in Verona but find it’s closed (two big German’s were there too, ‘no meat balls – then we find somewhere else for meatballs’) and instead find this gorgeous little tapis bar down a side alley. We enjoy anchovies with lime and red pepper, fried mozarella artichokes, salmon in fetta and tuna in red peppers in the 45 minutes it takes the sun to pass over lane.
Somewhere on Di’s map she’s marked ‘B’ and we decide to scout this out – not knowing if it’s B for boat, bank or brussel sprouts and find a delightful bookshop with a gondola inside full of books and a stair of grubby swollen books, damaged in the last flood, leading up to the top of back wall, and view of the canal. Di contemplates buying a Catholic calendar of handsome priests!
We set our minds on the Arsenal now, miss it, and end up on the corso east of St Marks square. We stop here to get fleeced by a corso cafe owner for the enjoyment of two very manly Aperol Spritz (where an Italian guy in a long sleeved T-shirt attempts to talk the language of luurv to his girl friend through chattering teeth and knocking knees – his hands are shaking with cold as he forks in some more battered prawns – but he looks great) and enjoy the setting sun, before heading off again in search of the Arsenal.
The kids fun park on the corso has one dad hopping from foot to foot so he can feel his toes, while his two young daughters stick there arms in the air and squeal with delight as the little rollercoaster wooshes down a dip.
We travel ridiculously far East out beyond Castello, get lost, follow a high fortress like stonewall, getting us even more lost, and discover that hanging washing typically heralds a dead-end. Nice garden out here though.
Finally we get back to the Rialto bridge (after passing the nightwatchman as he locked the door to the Arsenal), only to get lost again – even avoiding washing – on our way back to our abode in Santa Croche.
We manage to dine in this nice little pizza place (love how they all do gluten free) despite the waiter’s very particular attention towards a young American tourist (they swapped numbers so something worked) and later, near home, we grab a night cap at a Charcuterie wine bar place. Here we meet George and Stephanie a parfumer and jewellery merchant from Paris. They are in the Marais and suggest we catch up for a drink when we hit town in a couple of weeks – nice.
Nicely worn out from getting too many times (delightfully) lost, we wobble home and crash.
Very full day! Sad about the wet books!
It was! They had a room with a video in it of the shop in the floods. The owners and patrons wandering around crotch deep in water looking dejectedly at all the submerged books!