Venice -- Navigating by churches

The only way to figure out Venice is to navigate by churches. You end up going across one bridge or investigating a little alley way and suddenly you are lost. However, once you reach a church, it is relatively easy to discover where you are.

On the second day, we did churches, starting with S. Giorgio Maggiore. It is a Palliadian church and so heavily influenced by Roman architecture. The big thing is to take the lift up the campanile for a fantastic view of St Mark's and indeed Venice. It costs about 3 euros v 7 euros to walk up St Marks campanile. It is really no contest and the views are super. Most of the tourists do St Marks...But if you take the 2 waterbus from S Zaccaria, it is about a 5 min. journey.

We then continued to the Rendentore on the Guidecca, and then took the 2 over to Dorsodoro and the Zattere where we saw two more churches. Then we took the 2 waterbus but it ended up not stopping where I thought it would, so we got off at the Rialto and walked up to Tintoretto's old house in Cannalregio. The statue of the moor outside the house has been there since before Tintoretto (1519 -1594) They think it might have to do with Leventine merchants who lived in the area. No one was about, and there was no one in his parish church Santa Maria della Orto.

We then walked back to the hotel and went for a drink in Harry's Bar. Harry's Bar lives on its name. The Bellini was perfect, but the olives were indifferent and the portion very samll for the price. It looks like a bar inside -- half wood and cream walls with small prints. Undoubtably Hemingway enjoyed it because it was a bar. Dinner at Corte Scunto more than made up for the deficienies at Harry Bar's. At Corte Scunto, it is all fresh fish -- the fish appetiser was three courses -- carrapacio of tuna and cuttle fish, and then spider crab butter, followed by clams in lemon, ginger and coriander (clamswith ginger is excellent), then a proper spider crab, crayfish, more cuttlefish (cooked), squid in its own ink, and whipped salt cod on polenta. I may be forgetting a dish. After that we had turbot for the main. I could not do dessert... All the fish was excellent and the maitre d looked like a younger taller version of Francesco da Mosto with an accent to match.

I am off to lunch with my editors today, so it is all go.