We started America’s birthday with a walk around Venice and riding the water buses on the Grand Canal.

We went to get cicchetti, small pieces of bread with various toppings that is apparently a Venice-specific food, for lunch at Cantine del Vino gia Schiavi, one of Rick Steves’ favorite places, and ate it outside standing by the canal with wine. This was Hudson’s favorite restaurant of the entire trip I think and he tried every weird thing we ordered, even discovering that he really likes salmon. We’ll see if he eats salmon at home from now on!

This is not an alley between two buildings, this is the width of a street in Venice:

Then we did some more walking/boating around Venice.

Peggy Guggenheim’s old house on the Grand Canal, where she lived the classic life of a wealthy dilletante, is now a modern art museum — the Guggenheim’s only satellite museum:

Then more walking around, another stop for cichetti at, as it turns out, a place down the street from the first place, and then dinner.