Venice in Depth

Above you'll find a 3 photo panorama of the Venice waterfront as seen from San Giorgio. I loved that fact that the trip up in the bell tower there was half the price of the trip up St. Mark's Tower, and half the crowds too! Not only that, but you had a wonderful view of the waterfront and San Marco and the Doge's Palace.




For our only full day in Venice, we hit up most of the major sights, starting with the Doge's palace. This glimpse into the history of the city was really cool, especially as of any Italian city Venice had the most ties between east and west. Venician traders had a lot of contact with the Middle East and Asia, and of course fought several wars with Turkey. All of this and more was laid out in the displays in the Doge's Palace, as well as a look into the New Prison, and the famous bride of sighs (so called because of the heart felt sighs of the prisoners being led to their cells from the courtroom.



I also really wanted to look through the cathedral there, as the architecture is very unique, a blend of eastern and western styles created with items both traded and 'liberated.'



We capped the day with a visit to the Rialto Bridge, before stumbling back to our non air conditioned room at the convent. Of all the places we stayed, Venice was the worst, though still the location was hard to beat.



Even with the limited time we got a lot done in Venice, though I could certainly spend days wandering the gorgeous alleyways and canals. I was both sad and happy to be leaving for home the next morning.