Dorsoduro and San Polo

The Dorsoduro is the area of Venice across the Grand Canal from San Marco. The first building, on the point of the island, is the 17th century Customs house - La Dogana da Mar. The next building, to its right, is Santa Maria Della Salute - St Mary of Health - built in 1630 as an offering to Mary for bringing an end to a  plague outbreak.
Above is a view of San Marco from the customs house, and below is the sculpture on the high alter in the church.  It shows the plague hag fleeing from an angel as the Virgin and a noblewoman representing Venice watch.

We then strolled through a few streets and over a few bridges until we got the to Peggy Guggenheim collection. She was an American heiress who lived in Venice and collected contemporary art, she tried to buy a picture a day. Aidan and I quite enjoyed the collection of (mid-century) modern art, below is Aidan's favourite sculpture from the garden.

After our bit of culture we sat canal side and had our cappuchino/chocolate break. It was a lovely bright sunny morning again, and we enjoyed watching the traffic on the Grand Canal. Our table was also right beside a gondola stand, and Aidan took a photo of the gondolier's extra outfit sitting in the gondola, with his hat on top - he put the hat back on when he was trying to drum up business, but didn't wear it while he was rowing (or whatever it is they do).

We jointly decided we weren't in the mood to spend such a lovely morning in the Gallerie dell'Accademia looking at Titian and Veronese and Carpaccio. We'd enjoyed the modern art at the Guggenheim, and that was enough. So we continued wandering through the area, and in Campo San Barnaba saw a boat moored by the edge of the canal that served as the neighbourhood greengrocer. We also saw the Ponte dei Pugni (bridge of the punches) where rival clans once fought out their differences. The guidebook described it as picuresquely arched, but we thought it was just the usual Venetian bridge.
Then we went to Campo Santa Margherita which is a big square - it includes 4 or 5 trees! - which has tons of cafes around as well as a church named after the patron saint of expectant mothers. Aidan and I both enjoyed our lunch in the sun, though it looks like I'm worshipping the sun and she's merely enjoying it.

The sun was so bright we started playing taking photos of the reflections of our water glasses. Aidan particularly likes the one that follows.

After our lunch we went to the Scuola Grande di San Rocoo (patron saint of the sick who was popular for his prowess at curing the plague) - built in the 16th century. Venice had a lot of trouble with the plague, because they had so much trade with other countries and so many ships with rats.

We wondered around the area a little more, getting lost now and then. By this method we also visited the Campo San Polo - apparently there was bull baiting there in the old days, but we just saw pigeons and children. Then we decided to find our way back to our own neighbourhood again. After getting lost a few more times - Aidan got some graffitti photos on our travels.

We ended up a block from the vaporetto stand when it started to rain. As usual we were prepared with umbrellas and jackets, but none the less came back to our hotel to wait out the afternoon rain time. Below is a photo of a souvenir stand which had closed up shop due to the rain and was being pushed up the street for storage.

When we got up to our room I took a photo of our street (the other direction than the above picture) - you can see how wide the street is and our hotel sign in the rain.