Venice - A full day exploring

Can’t believe today is our last full day in Venice already! We made the most of it.

Started the morning off early and took the slow vaporetto from the Casino to St Marks square. We got quite an early start again, but got on the slow boat #1 which stops at every stop possible, great for touring but not great if you are trying to beat the crowds to St Marks square.

We were surprised how busy St Marks square was already at 9AM, I guess you have to be really early to have no vendors and not many tourists in your pictures.



St Marks Square, Andres favourite building behind me

My favourite clock, check out how the time is displayed, it is now 9:15, kids only read digital now, could they tell the time on this?

Top of Basilica

Always prepared for the floods.  When it is very high tide and storms the square floods and they put out these platforms to walk on

I had booked a secret itineraries tour of Doges Palace for 9:55 this morning. It turned out to be a great tour, we both were quite ignorant about the history of Venice and this tour gave us tons of information. The tour lasted for about 90 minutes, takes you to some places that regular tour tickets can’t buy, and then lets you lose to explore the rest of the palace on your own. We were up and down small staircases, in jail cells, saw where prisoners were tortured, saw where the trials took place and learnt about the Venetian administration, and saw where Casanova escaped from when he was imprisoned, and heard all the stories about that. When we toured the palace on our own it was extremely busy, we both were fed up with the crowds and really didn’t spend the time that it warrants. Beautiful frescoes, we could have spent hours in here, just way too many people.

Doge's family crests.  They were mainly normal everyday people, like the crest represented by the saw, this family were carpenters

Golden staircase

Next off we visited the Basilica once again. The lights were on again at this time of day, we perhaps are the only people that visited the Basilica 3 times in 3 days and the lights were on every time. The purpose of the visit today was to go up on the balcony the overlooks the square, where the replica horses are. To get up on the balcony you need to buy the museum pass as well, it is 5.00 Euro, perhaps the best deal in town. The museum is where the original horses are now located. The museum also has some beautiful mosaics that are nice to see close up. There are also some beautiful church artifacts on display, but we jumped over these quickly as we are on a strict timeline to get in everything we wanted to do today. The balcony gives you some absolutely beautiful views of the square. It is pretty amazing to stand up there looking out over one of the most beautiful squares that we have ever seen.

Amazing Mosiacs in basilica

View of square from top of Basilica

 Next we had to quickly move on to get to our 1PM booking for the fancy store rooftop terrace that we had reserved the day before. We get to the concierge desk to pick up our tickets, no one there. We went to where you line up to go up, there is absolutely no one in line, and we are told to go on up. No time limit today, what a difference a week day makes over a weekend.

Next on the agenda was to find the shop where they fix gondolas. I knew approximately where this was, but had never looked for an exact address. We got to the right part of the city, and then one of us really needed to eat so we didn’t get to the restaurant I wanted to go to that I knew was by the shop. So, stopped for pizza and spaghetti, then a gelato for dessert. Lots of young people around this part of the city, so lots of cheap food available too. This is one time we actually ate in a square.

Next we found the gondola repair shop, not too much activity there today. We did see one gondola getting painted, but not much more action. The shop is right across the canal from where I wanted to eat, it would have been fun to eat here, I should have been more insistent that we wait a few more minutes.

One day we will come back to Venice and be picked up by one of these private boats, the really fancy hotels had them parked outside for private pickups.



Floating vegetable market

 My pizza at lunch, yes Andre helped me

Gondola repair shop

Next we took the vaporetto across to Basilica de Santa Maria Della Salute which is pretty much directly across from St. Marks Basilica. Pretty views from here. When we went into the Church they were just starting an organ recital for lent. We stayed for a couple of hymns but moved on, one organ recital a week is good for us.

Speed gun on the canal

We had talked about doing a gondola ride, 80.00 Euro for 30 minutes during the day 100.00 for 35 minutes at night. This is something that looks cool in the movies, but when you are here there are so many of them that seem to be jam packed all up together that it really didn’t interest us much. It was fun to see them, mostly they are being used by Asian tourists, and so many of the gondoliers seem to be on their cell phones, not for us. Anyway we compromised and did the 2.00 Euro per person Traghetto that takes you from one side of the canal to the other with up to 12 people in a bigger gondola with 2 men driving. It was actually quite fun, and it filled our desire for a gondola ride.

Our gondola ride!

One thing on our list was to take the elevator up the tower in St. Marks square. We got there tonight just before closing, only 15 more people got on after us. We had debated doing this, but we are very happy we did. Much different views than we got from the Basilica. We basically got to stay up here as long as we wanted since we were at the end of the day. Lots of room to move around and take pictures, really glad we got this in.

Views from bell tower

The top of my favourite clock

Next we got the vaporetto back towards home. We have more than paid for the passes we bought for this. Sometimes we just wanted to cross the canal, sometimes we used it as a tour boat and just took it for the sites.

Very close to our apartment is the Campo del Ghetto. I had read about this online, it is where the Jewish population lived between the 1400’s and 1700’s. There are 3 synagogues here, and still an active Jewish community. There are small square bronze plaques in front of doorways with names of residents that were taken away during the holocaust, very moving, along with the bronze reliefs that are in the square. The structures are really close together here, and 4-6 story high, in 7 acres. The origin of the word ghetto comes from here.

Next we walk back to the apartment for a little break and a glass of wine.

Time to head back into the St. Marks Square again. Andre wants to take his tripod to get some night pictures. We also walk along the arsenal which we hadn’t done before. Lots of nice high end hotels and restaurants here. We’re not sure, but this may be where the cruise ships dock as well?

Next we decide to walk home to see some more sites. We love walking along the smaller canals and just getting lost. Well we did get a little mixed up and now we are hungry as well as it is 9:30. We find a spot that looks good, I order rigatoni, the waiter said they were out and brought me penne noodles, I said is this Canadian rigatoni, he laughed at that. We then showed him our map and he had to show us where we were. We were fairly close to where we were trying to go, but just a street or 2 off and you are in a bit of a mess once it gets dark. Everything is safe, it is just trying to figure out where you are is tricky.

So our waiter points us the way home, we still got a little mixed up, but found our way following I think what was a German tour group to the right main street.

Home by 10:30 bed time, off to Rome tomorrow, the whole apartment seems to be rocking, feels like I was on a cruise ship all day