Italy Day 2: Venice

To start out our second day in Venice, we headed back to St. Mark's Square.  Since it was late afternoon the previous day when we had visited, the sites had been closed, so went there first thing to beat the lines.  Our first stop:  St. Mark's Basilica.

It is an amazing building, built mostly with marble and pillars stolen from a ransacked Constantinople.  Inside is where St. Mark's remains are buried after rescuing/stealing the remains from Alexandria.

I thought this sign was great.

There is a museum in the top part of the church that contains these four bronze horses.  These horses have quite a history, originating in Ancient Rome, then being taken around the world by each conquering people as the spoils of war.  They stood on the top of St. Mark's Basilica for a long time, until they were eventually replaced with copies and brought inside the museum for safekeeping.

We were able to go out on the balcony of St. Mark's to look out over the square.

A view of the clock tower.

A view of the Doges Palace on the left and then out towards the Lagoon.

After a audio tour of St. Mark's Square, we walked to the top of the campanile (bell tower) and had an even better view.

It was the top of the hour while we were there, so we had a front row seat to the (VERY LOUD!) ringing of the bells.

We liked these cool old statues in the square

 and all the amazing arches everywhere!

We saw these platforms around the square and learned that in March the square often floods with seasonal high tides, so when that happens, they just raise it up a few feet with a wooden boardwalk.

The picture below is not very good, but I was trying to capture the man with the roses.  These guys were everywhere handing out roses to women and then demanding payment from the man they were with.  They were actually everywhere all over Italy, at every major tourist attraction we visited.  The first time, I didn't understand so when he handed it to me I took it.  But I really didn't want it (I definitely didn't want to carry it around all day) but he wouldn't take it back.  I finally had to lay it on the ground by him and walk away.  After that, I got very good at avoiding the rose men.

These people were also out trying to get people to take photos with them for a fee.  That is one giant dress!

We wandered around Venice a bit,

then made our way to the Church of Santa Maria Della Salute.  It was built as a shrine to the Virgin Mary for saving Venice from the plague that killed 47,000 people.  It had a dome interior with a beautiful mosaic floor.

 We strolled through the Venice side streets,

ate some gelato,

found these locks on the bridges (put there by couples who then tossed the key into the water)

 and made our way to the Accademia museum.

This museum is dedicated to Venetian art.  The building itself was exquisite.  

This painting, called, Feast in the House of Levi, was originally intended to the the Last Supper painting commissioned for a church.  But when the painting was completed, the church leaders thought it was too profane--much to like a big Venice party--that they made the artist change the name.  

 After the museum, we strolled up to the Rialto bridge,

did some window shopping, 

and then went back to St. Mark's Square.  We were going to tour the Doges Palace, but it was already closed.  Instead we watched them set up the little cafes for dinner and we heard the music start to play.  Each of the three cafes on the square has a quartet that plays classical music.  They are pricey places to eat, so we went elsewhere for dinner, but I loved hearing the music as part of the ambiance of the whole place.

The weather turned cold and rainy.  We went back to St. Mark's after dark because it is supposed to be quite a sight in the evening, but I guess because of the bad weather we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  We stayed for a while enjoying our amazing surroundings and worked hard to avoid the rose men.