Venice, ah, Venice. As we came into Venice at 6am, we had fantastic views of the city, especially St. Marks. Here's the campanile from the cruise ship as we went by around 6am.
Once we docked, we made our way over to St. Mark's square. The cruise ship set up a vaporetto that took us directly from the cruise ship to an area just east of St. Mark's. Once we got there, we walked towards St. Mark's and saw the bridge of sighs, which got its name because that was the bridge the prisoners walked across to the prisons (on the right) and they supposedly sighed upon seeing Venice for the last time. Until I was, oh, 18 or so, I thought it was the bridge of size, and, upon seeing it the first time 10 years ago, was severely disappointed. Ed took this pic of the bridge from the cruise ship.
Once in St. Marks, we generally just took a look around, as it is pretty impressive, with the large open piazza, St. Mark's, the Campanile, and the clock tower.
Unfortunately, it then began to rain. We wandered under the awnings of the shops that lined St. Marks and then made our way over to the Doge's Palace, where we had a tour reserved. The tour was called "The Secret Itineraries" and it highlighted some of the aspects of the Doge's Palace that you don't see on the self-guided tour, such as the bureaucratic rooms, the torture chamber, and the prison cells. We saw the cells that Casanova was imprisoned in, as well as the one where he made his escape. However, what I'm sure we will all remember most was our c-r-e-e-p-y tour guide. She barked at our group to keep our bags in front because the walls were original, and then she would flash the most ghoulish looking smile. It was uber weird. And she enjoyed showing us how the prisoners were tortured a bit too much.
After the Secret Itinerary tour, we toured the main rooms. In fact, the best part of the Secret Itinerary tour was that it enabled us to skip the lines that everyone else had to stand in to get into the palace at all. The rooms were very ornate and impressive, and we even walked across the bridge of sighs.
From there, we had a quick bite to eat, and then we broke into two groups. EE braved the rain and walked to the Rialto Bridge, and JGJG went to the Correr Museum.
After we met back up, we all then wandered towards the Rialto. The rain had let up a bit, but most of us were pretty wet and cold. But that didn't stop us from getting some gelato! This concoction, ordered by John, was called spaghetti ice.
From there, we headed back to the square, and did a little bit of shopping on the way.
Then, at 6:30, we began our private tour of St. Marks. The first hour was spent outdoors. Luckily, it had stopped raining, but there was a chill in the air. Our guide, Louisa, was very knowledgeable and also quite funny. She was, we think, British, and had a very dry sense of humor that won us over. Here's the only original exterior mosaic at St. Marks.
We then made our way inside from the side entrance of the church. So, we thought that we would be six of about a hundred or so inside the church. We were wrong. Including our guides, we were six of 21! Jane, Greg, and Erin had been to St. Marks before and what we remembered were guards telling us to keep moving, to not take pictures, and to be quite. Well, this time, the only instruction we got was to not take pictures. We went in and sat in a "pew" (folding chairs). It was pretty dark, and then they turned the lights on. Wow. Everything sparkled with the lights turned on and it just looked amazing. From there we went up to the alter were supposedly the remains of St. Mark are, and then we were able to stand in front of the Pala d'Oro, the ornately decorated alterpiece. When we'd been there previously, they made you keep moving, but here we could really admire it, and our guide showed us where they had cut out someone else's head and put the head of the doge on instead. It was very neat.
We then got a crick in our neck as we stared at the really amazing mosaics on the ceiling. There is one of the apostles and Mark is represented as a lion with really weird googly eyes. And then there is another mosaic that depicts how, during a restoration of St. Marks, the relics of St. Marks were misplaced (according to Louisa, "That put them in a bit of a spot") and then, amazingly, a column opened up to reveal the relics.
Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures, but this was a highlight of Venice and of the entire trip. Once we exited, Ed snapped this pic of Venice.
When then took the vaporetto back to the ship and crashed.
The next day, we split into a couple of groups. Gay and Jane decided to stay on the ship, as it was to rain and be cold again. John and Greg made their way to the Accademie (getting there, they said, was easy...actually finding the entrance proved to be a challenge). Erin and Ed had a late morning and then went to the Arsenale, the shipyard that inspired Dante's Inferno. It looked cool, but it was still an active military site (who knew) so we couldn't get that close.
After the arsenale, Ed and I got a little lost, but managed to make our way to a bookstore. While we were on the Rodeo Drive of Venice we ran into Dad and John and pointed them in the direction of the bookstore. We all did a little more shopping before Dad headed back to the ship and John, Ed, and I got ready for our tour of the bell tower.
Except, I goofed. I didn't get us a tour of the bell tower, I got us a tour of the clock tower. However, it turned out to be a pretty good goof. We were the only ones signed up for the tour and the guide was great (especially compared to creepy lady). She took us to areas that we weren't technically supposed to go and gave a good story about the clock itself (she repeatedly said that it is a shame that we were seeing was not the original clock, but a replacement that was installed in the 1750s! Uh, save for the Anasazi, we don't have anything our country that is remotely that old.). Here are John and Ed near the world's first digital clock.
Here's what it looked like on the outside and the gears.
And on the very top, there were two moors who struck the clock 2 minutes before every hour and 2 minutes after every hour.
Plus, there were some cool views from the top.
Once we were done, we decided that Ed and John had enough time to go up to the top of the campanile, where there were some amazing views of Venice. Notice that from the top, you can't see any of the canals!
As we were leaving, the high tide was creeping up, making it impossible to walk and avoid puddles.
And finally, here is a pic of Ed and his beard in front of St. Mark's from our cabin.
