Not much news

We took a constitutional walk this morning (2.2 miles, 209 calories, 1 hour 6 minutes), as we have the past few mornings.  One does feel the need to move, at least at the beginning of the day.  We buy the Gazzettino, we do some minimal shopping, and then back into our lair.

It has been driven home a million times that we are not to touch our eyes, nose or mouth, so naturally that’s all I want to do.  I have managed to compromise with myself, and only rub my nose with my sleeve, as if I were five years old.  (I doubt that I was allowed to do that when I was five, though Lino remembers a number of children when he was small whose sleeves were their first line of drippy-nose defense all winter long.)  Tissues were invented in 1924, but unhappily it wasn’t for the succor of Venetian urchins.

Walking along around 9:00 AM, I counted from five to seven vaporettos of various types moving around the bacino of San Marco (battello, motoscafo, the Alilaguna, the ferry between Tronchetto and Lido) but only a few other vehicles.  The next bulletins about them may well have to do with limiting the service; it’s only a matter of time.  Even I can see that it’s not the best idea to keep burning fuel to carry so few people around, although it does sort of liven up the landscape.

No more guessing if you fit in the shop or not — the small tobacco/toy store has already calculated the correct dimensions and stipulated how many people can enter at a time.  In red letters:  “Attention: Because of the new public health law only two persons at a time may enter.”
Closer to San Marco, the English subtitles appear. In this glass shop in Campo San Zaccaria they can take four at a time.
“Crisis of coronavirus 8 hotels in 10 are heading toward closing.”  We were warned that this was likely, and considering how few people are to be seen on the streets, it seems inevitable.
We saw them locking the chain on the front door of the hotel Al Nuovo Teson at 10:00 AM and it seemed fairly final.  I’ve seen plenty of places closed with signs saying “Closed for maintenance” or “Closed for vacation,” with reopening dates noted.  The hotel’s website accepts a reservation for day after tomorrow, so I’m not sure what to think about this chain.  There’s a saying here that “Hope is the last thing to die,” so we may be reaching that point.

 

 

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