Ah, Venice…the art, the history, the water – the doughnuts! I swear to God, you’ll forget all about Krispy Kreme once you taste a bomba from Tonolo in Dorsoduro. The tender dough, the rich custard, the crunchy sugar, it’s enough to make a girl give up her four-year vow of sugar chastity. Trust me, it’s worth the splurge.

After more than a month in the deep south of Italy, it was a treat to venture north and experience the country's profound regional differences. Of course, Venice is unique for being built on water, and one can never quite get over the sensation of being caught in the 15^th Century. You keep expecting a courtier to come around the corner in pointy shoes. This week, however, it was enough to see tremendous ethnic diversity (if you can believe it, lots of Chinese students) and youth in Venice. You could still feel the aftermath of Carnevale, as children donned masks from queens to Spider Man and frightened vaporetto riders.

Even the language is different here, not as fast and not as expressive as in Puglia, with its own particular dialect. In the U.S. that means how a person pronounces something. Here it means using different words altogether, so a palazzo is a ca’, a via is a calle. I don’t know enough Italian for the difference to be bothersome, but I am glad I intend to live in the same place while we’re here.

I do, however, wish Monopoli had a market to compare to the Rialto, in the heart of town, just off the famous bridge. You can get everything you need there for a killer seafood meal – that’s what it’s renowned for – but behind the bustling stalls filled with squid and scallops, shrimp and spigola, lurk established shops for meat and chicken and cheese.

And the market is fronted by vegetable and fruit stands with mostly local produce (the exception, which we couldn’t pass by, were delicious dried apricots and medjool dates.)  One thing to remember in Italian markets: Let the vendor chose for you or you might invite a rebuke.

I know it’s hard to tell, but I do love things other than food. Like what? Modern art. And Venice indulged me. The ever fabulous Peggy Guggenheim Museum, with one of the most marvelous collections of modern sculpture you’ll ever see, mounted a stellar tribute to post-war art. Debuffet, Dufy, Arp, Leger, Kandinsky, Picasso and more, all amassed around the theme of artistic reactions to the war, was so moving. It was interesting to contrast the Italian artists to the other Europeans, considering the difference in their collective experience of the war. Giacometti’s despondency didn’t come out of nowhere.

I’ve been to the Guggenheim many times, but never to Ca’ Pesaro, the city’s own collection of modern art. It’s a wonderful collection, too, if not on the scale of the Guggenheim. It also included a large exhibit of contemporary Italian art, very experimental and thought provoking. But it’s hard to focus on the art when the surrounding is so impressive. The 1710 palazzo itself just can’t be overlooked, even if there are false walls with famous art on them. I found myself trying to peer around the barriers to glimpse the Grand Canal below. Any way, if you tire of the riches of the city itself, I recommend both museums as an enlightening way to spend a couple of hours.

Another way, if you care about history, is to stroll over to the Jewish ghetto. Much has been made of Jews in Europe and their increasing sense of dislocation as the immigrant crisis feeds the rise of the far right political parties. But I was pleasantly surprised to find Shabbat services going on in the ancient quarter. I peered through the window at the women and babies in back as the rabbi delivered a rousing sermon to the men in front. (I wasn’t dressed properly to go in.) Across the square, a young man led a group of children in their own service – much chanting and foot stomping – in the kosher deli (closed on Saturday, of course.) Finding a practicing Jewish community in Italy is no small feat – Rome, four hours away, is the nearest one to me – so it was a delight to see one in action.

As for people watching, which you know I can’t resist, Venice takes the cake for fancy street style. Fur was everywhere, on women and men, morning or night, with jeans or sequins. My favorite was a chic older woman in Ferragamo shoes riding a vaporetto on a cloudy day sporting a shimmery bronze rain coat trimmed at the cuffs and collar – in what else? -- mink.  You could even spot the occasional short haircut, never seen on women in the south, but men from 12-40 hued to the national Italian do of shaved sides and slicked back top. Regardless of style, everyone decamps to the bacaro come dusk.

Unlike other Italian towns, where food can be hard to find after three and before 8, Venice knows no such prohibition. People eat freely at all hours, my kind of town. For snacking, nothing beats the bacaro, a bar-cum-snack shop, where you can order a glass of wine and pick from little plates of savories like bacala, salami and parmesan and creamy tuna on bread arrayed in a glass case at the front. (The idea of tapas but the execution of an Italian grandma, never fussy and always good, plus acceptable cheap wine, so what’s not to love?)

Being penny-pinching pensiones now, we mostly passed up Venice’s legendary shopping – boo-hoo! – but who can keep from lingering in front of shop windows full of hand-blown vases and curlicued glasses, sleek leather purses and shoes and most tempting of all, those infernal sweets. O.K, I confess, I had a doughnut every day.

No matter how many times we visit Venice, we'll always want to return.

It should be said upfront that Da Romano is one of our all-time favorite restaurants, rating a return to the Burano trattoria every time we visit Venice. The question becomes, can a successful long-time restaurant maintain its quality and tradition without succumbing to sameness and culinary boredom? Is this meal the one that disappoints?

Don and I booked ourselves for Sunday lunch, the most fun people-watching meal of the week, and travelled with fellow pleasure-seekers to the charming lace-making island of Burano. Around every canal corner, our anticipation grew. Would people dine outside on this 60-ish February day as they do in fair weather? Would members of the Barbaro family, who opened the restaurant in a former lace factory 70 years ago, still work the dining room? Would the food be as sublime as we remembered?

As the distinctive green and red sign came into view, the outside tables were indeed filled with Venetians and tourists (mostly French). The dining room was brimming, yet the maitre d’ kindly allowed us to sit at a table set for four.

And yes, he belonged to the Barbaro family, whose patriarch Romano started a general store on Burano in the late 1800’s and for whom the trattoria is named.

Our waiter served us with skill and ready opinions of the menu’s best choices. Though he was mildly askance at our request to share each course (the only way to manage a full Italian meal and live to tell), he graciously split each dish for us.

While the insalata mista was unremarkable in its composition -- the same radicchio, green leaf, arugula, carrots and tomato you would find in any Italian eatery -- it was more deeply flavorful, tossed with a fruity extra virgin olive oil and salt. The spaghetti con vongole (another dish you’ll find on every coastal menu) arrived in all its clammy vapors with perfectly al dente pasta, the rich taste of butter, bright green bits of parsley and the incomparable lusciousness of Italy’s veraci clams.

The seafood went particularly well with the floral but dry Les Neris white from the nearby Friuli region. It also complimented our entrée of mixed grilled fish, a trio of sole, monkfish and eel, plus two scampi, cooked over fire and served with lemon and salt. Neither Don nor I are great fans of eel because of its texture, but even so, it was better than any previous version. The monkfish was savory and toothsome, a contrast to the meltingly tender sole, which couldn’t be beat for flavor. The scampi reminded us of rock shrimp, but the magic soup of the Venetian lagoon amped up their sweetness.

The wine took its course and sated, we shared our bonhomie with a roomful of happy diners all contemplating the same thing – the famous cheesecake or the lighter mircolotta? Rarely two to pass by chocolate, we chose the latter, a three-layer confection of vanilla genoise filled with a milk chocolate ganache and topped with dark chocolate shavings. We didn’t regret it.

So there’s your answer, curious readers – Da Romano is forever fabulous and worthy of a continuous Come-back Award.