Thursday saw another foray into our immediate environs seeking Tintorettos

within the churches of San Polo with one small mid-morning pause on a tiny sidestreet

for a killer double espresso, finishing up at the Chiesa di San Polo – a Tintoretto “Last Supper”, Veronese and Tiepolos galore – before I rushed off to intersect my brother,

visiting from Florence for the day, near S.Toma to which he’d walked from the Ferrovia to see what we were up to which, almost immediately, was lunch.   Many opted for salads, curiously

refreshing, after which we inspected the Piantas within the Scuola di San Rocco wherein the floors, the stonework and the stones’ provenance also fascinated.

From the Scuola we trailed Mr. Watson past celebratory tables of recent graduates [not shown]

on a perfect afternoon to the Scuola Grande dei Carmini and Tiepolo’s murals

in all their glorious thighs-in-the-skies lasciviousness … then for the most outrageous bit of

painting yet, on to San Pantaleone Martire where the ceiling [executed by Gian Antonio Fumiani

from 1680 until he fell to his death from the scaffolding in 1704] was, pace Ruskin, vertiginously spectacular.

We returned to our palazzo-by-the-canal until it was time for Bryan’s train, which pretty much

coincided with our departure for another memorably unremembered dinner, again in

Canareggio,

at Osteria Orto d’ Mori and home by water in the night.

Next day, Linda’s birthday and a Friday, we left early by

the usual conveyance

to Ca’ D’ Oro for a walk across the sestiere where,

after a quick bite of espresso,

we ogled the insanely amazing marble carvings within Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta, I Gesuiti ,

before boarding the 9:30 vaporetto at Fondamenta Nuove for the islands.

Crammed with tourists, their phones and cameras constantly clicking in the constant collection

of images, the scene on the boat [as all through touristic Venice] threw my own incessant

image-collecting  into a dubious light as we motored towards Murano and islands further into the Lagoon…

September 28th…awhile ago, now.