Venice: Day Two

We spent the next day in Venice around the Piazzo di San Marco. (St. Mark's Plaza) It took us a while to get there. Venice's walking streets are very confusing. They are all very narrow, and there aren't a whole lot of big landmarks. So walking across the city took us quite some time.

Here we are during our hour long journey.

When we got to San Marco, the first thing we did was go in the bell tower. It was quite tall (96 m), but there was an elevator. I was kinda hoping to take the stairs, because that is usually cheaper, plus you have a sense of accomplishment after you are done, but no dice.

The panoramic view of Venice was pretty amazing. In old European cities, it's very difficult to see very far while in the city because all the buildings are so densely packed together. When you do have the chance to get above it, the feeling is really cool. The same thing happened in Rome, Aix, and Paris.

After the bell tower, we went to St. Mark's Basilica. The outside is very beautiful, but half of it was undergoing renovation, so we only have this little tid bit for you. It was also a little bit smaller on the outside than I expected. It was definitely not nearly as large as the basilicas in Rome. But it was still big.

The inside was amazing. It was covered in gold paint (or maybe gold leaf) and mosaics. It had sort of an Eastern style, reminiscent of Constantinople. While we were inside, we tried to find the body of St. Mark (of Gospel-writing fame), who is buried there. We didn't figure it out though. When we got home, we looked it up and discovered that he is interred in the altar.

After our regular lunch of pizza, we went to the Doge's Palace. While we were waiting in line for our ticket, a french lady offered us two tickets for free. Apparently she had accidentally reserved four instead of two, and she gave us the other two. It was extremely nice!

The inside had a lot of interesting rooms. The government of Venice convened here before the Italy was unified. They also had an arms and armor exhibit inside, which I thought was pretty cool.

And here is the famed Bridge of Sighs, where prisoners got there last glimpse of freedom before going to prison. We actually got to walk inside it, which was pretty cool. You may be wondering why the Bridge of Sighs goes between two clouds in the sky, rather than between two Venetian buildings. That is because there were giant advertisements for something but up over this part of the Doge's Palace, presumably to cover up some renovations. It was little weird looking though.