Of course there are too many people in Venice. On the Ponte Rialto, visitors from India cross selfie sticks with the Chinese as if they are swords and pickpockets must have lobbyists working city hall to get a spot in the area because it just seems such a safe bet that in that line of work you can earn a very healthy living here. But even in season, it only takes a few turns and you are in a neighborhood of quiet streets and alleys, lined with pastel-colored houses hundreds of years old, an occasional view of a narrow canal opening up as you venture further into the medieval maze. Venice is always, always, worth your time. This week’s visit was very short, I knew the cruise ship I was on would leave with or without me.

I practically ran from the Piazza di Roma to my first destination: a cheese shop I had found online right across a canal from the Santa Maria Formosa, a church with a  split personality: it has a well-proportioned baroque facade on the north side, but on the side facing the canal and the cheese shop, it looks like a Renaissance church. There is a generation between the two facades. The tower is the best part of the complex: it has some very robust, simple patterns that segment the structure and give it a certain visual rhythm. They did towers quite well in Venice, centuries ago.

Prosciutto e Parmigiano’s website is in two languages and raises the specter of a slick experience, but I was pleasantly surprised: the owner spoke some English, but body parts other than our mouths had to be deployed frequently to ensure that I got what I thought I wanted: some buffalo mozzarella di campagna (try it and you’ll immediately understand why these globs of cheese candy usually are finished off in a single seating); a piece of straw-coated Tuscan Pecorino, and a thick slice of Asiago, the sharpest Provolone Stagionato I have ever tasted, and a piece of Vezzena di Lavarone.

With my singular mission (get the cheese) accomplished, I began my quest back to the Piazza di Roma across the Rialto Bridge through the maze of water and stone. And that’s when Venice kept its promise: in the Campo Cesare Battisti già della Bella Vienna (really, you still ask what is in a name?) I stumbled across the Casa del Parmigiano, Giuliano Aliani’s cheese shop, and – but of course – I got even more cheese. A piece of bright yellow Piacentinu Ennese, given its unusual color by adding some saffron to the cheese (it also has peppercorns); the Pannerone Lodigiano that became the cheese of the week, and the Montasio Friulano.

And a little closer to my destination I came past the beautiful courtyard of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, the building of a religious organization which used to house a piece of the true cross of Jesus. Of course, so many of those pieces existed that the cross poor Jesus carried up Golgotha hill must have been absolutely humongous. The initial inhabitants were so-called flagellants, people that would viciously whip their own backs in a gesture of penance during certain celebrations. Right after this place was founded the city, wisely, outlawed this gruesome practice: who wants blood spraying through the streets? The courtyard has a beautiful Renaissance gateway, dreamed up by architect Pietro Lombardo near the end of the 15^th century. After some time looking around I returned to the ship, picking up some rolls and pan pistacchio on the way. With more than half a dozen cheeses in my bag, I was destined for a cheese-arama…