They call me mellow cello

Yesterday evening we walked to the Church of San Vidal to watch these guys go baroque.

Interpreti Veneziani must be well sick of Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' after playing it hundreds of times a year to tourists. Despite this they were excellent. (In the same way I suppose that juggling or tightrope walking remains a thrill for the observer even if it becomes workaday for the performer.) It must be a relief to do something different in the last half hour of the concert.

Signor Vianello was a dapper young man who seemed very good indeed. However, for me the cellist, Davide Amadeo (?) was the star. Let's face it, sitting with a cello between your legs is never going to be dignified, so he put on a show. He tossed his head, pulled faces and locked eyes with the lead violinist like he was Jimmy Page communing with Robert Plant. Great fun. Gianni Amadeo, the bassist, looked like Santa and seemed amused that nobody knew his Dragonetti tune so they didn't know when to clap. 

I'd turned off my phone for the performance because I live in terror that it will ring during a concert. Even though I knew I had turned it off, I felt a little queasy at the thought of of Primavera being interrupted by my current ringtone (the old USSR national anthem). Ring tone anxiety has to be a classic First World problem. 

The catch was that, after the concert, when I turned it on again to tell it to navigate us home in the dark, it asked for my Italian sim code! This was back in the apartment - so it was down to me. 15 minutes later it was obvious I had taken a wrong turn. This is not difficult. The calle of Venice are narrow alleyways. They look similar. Every so often you enter a tiny square with a well, church and statue or cross a bridge. The only sounds are revellers and singing gondoliers. Put into Venice at night, Theseus would still be looking for the Minotaur. I reverted to my fall back strategy. Many intersections have arrows to landmarks. Lyn saw a sign per Rialto. The Rialto Bridge was a couple of minutes from the apartment but at least I knew the way from there. We turned per Rialto, and there was Ponte Rialto, 15 metres away! I had no idea. I'd been walking northeast instead of East. We walked for two more minutes and were home.