05-07 Venice St Marks Square

I KNOW we've mentioned Rick Steves name quite a bit on this trip but he is an expert when it comes to helping Americans traveling in Europe. We have been following his TV shows on PBS and attending his seminars locally since 1995 or so and his common sense approach to getting the most out of Europe really appealed to us.

The reason for the preface is because once again his advice has saved us considerable time standing in a line that we did not need to stand in. There is always (it seems) a 200-300 person line to get into St. Mark's Basilica (church). It's free to get in, so it's popular. The Basilica does not allow backpacks into the church. People who don't know will stand in line with their backpack until they get to the person at the entrance who tells them you can't bring that in here. He will tell them to check their bag a 1/2 block away and then to come back and use the entrance to the left to get in. Rick says, check your bag first and your claim ticket will allow you to enter on the left without standing in the line. It works!

St. Mark's is not one of the biggest churches in Europe but it is still very pretty and has a few hidden gems inside.

Look at that crazy mosaic floor as you walk in. Somebody worked overtime on that.

All of the gold color you see is actually tiny pieces of gold tiles. They were put down at slightly different angles so that no matter where you were the wall/ceiling would sparkle.

Here is a close-up of one part of the family tree of Jesus showing David.

These mosaics go on and on all around the church.

The views are spectacular from outside up on the ledge.

The Doges Palace is on the left and the end of the current government offices is on the right. The Grand Canal can be seen and the line of people down the middle of the screen is waiting to get into St. Marks.

After our 2 hour journey through St Marks we found a quick lunch before heading up into the Bell Tower, the large brick building with even better views of Venice.

At the top their are quite a few bells.

It seems there are bells everywhere in this city. Just across the plaza are these two guys who seem to be the most prolific bell ringers in the square.

Here is the best shot we have of half of St Marks Basilica from above.

For $6e we rented these handsets which explained different things we could see from up here.

In various places around the tower there were maps with numbers on them. Punch in the number and listen to an explanation of what you were looking at. #13 on the map is our neighborhood Bovolo.

And with Karen's superzoom digital camera she is able to get a great shot of the Bovolo next to our Venice hotel.

You can get a better idea of the size of the Doges Palace from this view. You can see how St Peters Basilica is attached to it on the left.

There were a number of cruise ships that came and went while we were in town.

A view of about 1/3 of the land that makes up the island portion of Venice.

The water and the waterfront were always our favorite parts of Venice and we went back there often to ride and watch the boats.

Coming down from the tower we heard music playing in the square as we often had. This was one of about 3 different bands that played in the square every day.

We wondered around the streets of Venice afterwards. Wouldn't it be great to live in Italy and be able to take a field trip to Venice?

Sometimes when two gondoliers go under the same small bridge at the same time they both have to duck to get under it.

This is the day we also went to the Leonardo da Vinci Museum to see recreations of his many inventions. Here is a bicycle he drew although there is no evidence that he actually built one.

A roller bearing. There was another one similar to this that is still used for car wheel bearings today.

A way to turn a crank and pull a weight up using a screw.

To top off the day we had our best meal during the trip at a restaurant near the Train Station on the Grand Canal. The place was called Pizzeria Ristorante Povoledo. Karen had spaghetti with meat sauce that actually had some flavor and rosemary fried potatoes. I had lasagna with Gorgonzola cheese and walnuts. Mmm. I'll take another helping now, please.