Woke up to another sunny day........perfect for Mothers' Day! We found out it is also Mothers' Day in Italy as well. Just like Mother's day in the United States, Festa Della Mamma is celebrated the second Sunday in May. We started the day with a big breakfast from the microwave! and then headed out. The first stop was Cafe San Giorgio for our second coffee of the day........due caffe machiato (decafenato).
From there we jumped on the vaporetto down to Palanca as we need to do a little grocery shopping and the stores close at 1:00 on Sunday. We went to Coin and grabbed eggs, strawberries, a lemon, some baby purple artichokes and wine. From there we headed back to the vaporetto and two stops up to Zitelle. Our lunch reservation was at the Belmond Cip's Club, which is their other restaurant which floats out on the water side of the hotel. We got a great table right on the water and spent a lazy 1 1/2 hours having a great meal!
Then back to the ranch for some painting, sketching and a rest. It was great to be connecting with all the kids on Mothers' Day!........almost feels like we were back in Wayland (almost, haha!).
At 5:00 we decided to take advantage of the great weather and head out on a quick trip over to San Marco. Haha, no such thing as a quick trip! It was actually fun to see the activity in the centro around San Marco on a nice Sunday late afternoon. It was clearly crowded, but not the worst we had seen. We wandered through Piazza San Marco along the northern arcade, past Florian's Cafe. We then meandered back along the Salizida San Moise.......and as we transitioned onto the Calle Larga XXII Marzo, we found a new small hotel that we had just read about.......Il Violino d"Oro. It just opened this past year and we thought we would take a quick peak.
As we stepped into the lobby we were greeted by a very nice desk attendant. We said we had heard about the hotel, and the next thing we knew we were being given a 30 minute tour including most of the typical rooms. He was really very nice and clearly wanted to get the word out about their hotel. The rooms were very nice, but also rather expensive.......but such is Venice, particularly in this central area.
After that we headed down to the vaporetto stop at S. Maria del Giglio. The #1 boat then took us back to San Zaccaria, where we grabbed a #2 boat back out to San Giorgio. At this point we were getting a bit run down, creeping up on 10,000 steps again! We stopped at the San Giorgio Cafe at 7:10 to see if we could grab a drink (typically closes at 7:00) and the waiter said 'certo!' and we sat down for a spritz select........and stayed for a half an hour.
Back to the room on a gorgeous evening........and a quick hot shower to get the blood moving again! and on to our dinner preparation.
All the narrative is appearing up front today!
A couple of interesting videos today of everyday life..........sometimes more interesting than the art and architecture!
LUNCH AT CIP'S CLUB AT THE BELMOND
