The three weeks since we left on vacation have flown by but probably due to age, fatigue starts to set in. Our only plans were for late in the afternoon so it was a good day to take it easy.

The apartment has worked well for us despite the stairs being hard on Scott’s knees.

Two bathrooms are a luxurious feature.

The kitchen even has a full-sized oven which we have not used.

When the doors and windows are closed, it is amazingly quiet inside. We have not heard our neighbours at all.

Scott keeps wanting to roll marbles on the floors which are as uneven as the ceiling.

Sadly, the second bedroom went unoccupied.

The balcony is a prime feature even if quite narrow.

Scott’s reading glasses broke so we needed to shop. To give the knees a break on our walk, we stopped to sit in San Moise which turns out to have an unusual altarpiece.

We looked at a number of other shops and I bought a birthday gift for Scott. The area around San Marco was crowded with tourists even though we thought the big Easter-Liberation Day break was over and the crowds would ease.

We decided that we would people watch by going to Cafe Florian in Piazza San Marco for lunch.

The historic cafe occupies a famous position on Piazza San Marco and charges you for the fact that an orchestra plays cheesy Italian-ish tunes. We paid more for an indifferent lunch than any of the delicious dinners we have enjoyed this trip. The desserts, which were too much and super-expensive, were good.

But the view was exceptional and people watching entertained us—except for children having temper tantrums.

More people watching and wandering.

We visited Basilica San Marco for the first time for Scott. The sun streaming into the church sparkled the mosaics.

You need to look down as well as up.

Despite being a church, there is nowhere to sit. The curb outside became a knee-friendly seat.

As there was still an hour to visit, we went to the Museo Correr. We had no pre-bought tickets but the late hour seems to have dissipated the crowd we saw earlier. It has a lot to see but I wanted to see Canova and Veronese. Entry include the archaeological museum; a person could spend a long time here.

Great views out the windows.

The downside of the Correr is there’s almost nowhere to sit. From there with a bit of getting lost, we went to a bookstore with English language books. Instead of Scott buying a book, I bought one.

Sore knees put us into a bar before dinner for an aperitivo.

Our dinner reservation at Osteria San Marco turned out to be a great idea as we watched everyone else coming into the restaurant get turned away. The decor is very wine centred and I noticed a lot of very interesting red Italian wines.

We chose red wine friendly dishes.

Scott had a lamb “scottaditto” which we make at home but this had a different sauce. I had fegato (liver) Venetian-style with white polenta.

We chose a Brunello I had not seen before.

Our walk home was short but interesting every direction we looked.

For a day which we planned to take easy, we did a lot of walking.