After spending many hours planning our vacation in Italy, I couldn’t wait for the day to start in Venice. We arrived in the late afternoon knowing that when we checked into our hotel we would not have time for actual sightseeing. After settling in, we walked around the area and chose a nice little restaurant for dinner. After which we went back to the room and checked our plans for the next day and then settled in for the rest of the night.
The next morning we started breakfast at the hotel and set off. Since we took a little walk the night before, we knew that the water bus stop was only a couple of blocks from the hotel and it was the only part of trip planning that I didn’t know much about. The total length of the city of Venice is only 2 miles and we were heading to St. Mark’s square which was a mile away so it didn’t seem to be very far, but since we had never been on a water bus, we couldn’t guess. how long it may take to get there. It turned out that it only took around half an hour to get there, however the journey was quite interesting as the boat zigzagged from one side of the Grand Canal to the other so it was important to know which side of the canal you wanted to go to.
Once we got to St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) we walked around a bit, took some photos, and decided which of the 3 main sights we planned to see first. We decided to go to the top of the tower in the Saint Marks square and have a view of the city. At first I thought we were going to have to walk to the top and was surprised to see an elevator on it. The trip only took about a minute, but it seemed longer because there are no windows to look out on the road. Once at the top I realized what a beautiful pristine day we had and without a hint of haze in the air we could get some great pictures. We took our turn looking at each side of the tower at the view which was spectacular and took some great pictures. I looked closely at the time on my watch because the tower’s huge bells still chimed and I, for one, didn’t want to be on top of the tower when they rang.
After coming down from the tower, the next place to see was St. Mark’s Basilica, which is the most famous of the more than 400 churches on this small island. Upon entering the church I was a bit surprised by the lack of light, which I thought made it a bit difficult to see the paintings and other artwork in the church. Another thing that caught my attention was not being able to bring any personal property to the church, I did not understand that there were no cameras, but you could not carry a backpack and I do not remember if a large purse was allowed.
After we finished at church, we took a break from sightseeing for lunch at a nice place around the corner, a little pricey for me, but we were on vacation and planned to go to some expensive places and more. reasonable places the rest of the time.
The last sight we had planned to see this day was the Doge’s Palace and I suggest anyone to go to Venice as a must see. Upon entering the palace, the first thing you notice is the ceilings that are heavily adorned with carvings and paintings everywhere. It seemed to me that there must be 50 rooms or more in the palace and they all had a different kind of pattern carved and painted on the ceilings.
Most of the rooms were large over 30 x 30 and some rooms seemed small compared to the rest, but each had paintings or sculptures. There were some rooms that we found particularly interesting being two very large rooms side by side with a giant 24 hour clock mounted on the common wall so you could see the clock from both rooms, each room measuring at least 120 x 75 feet.
The most impressive room in the palace was a common meeting room that I believe was used as a courtroom and for city meetings. I have seen very large rooms before, but this place was huge at least 250 feet long 120 or more feet wide and over 60 feet high with no central support beams of any kind, the entire ceiling was freestanding. I couldn’t imagine how they could build such a stretch more than 400 years ago without steel.
By the time we finished seeing the Doge’s Palace it was mid-afternoon around 4, so we still had time to see more, so we went down to see the Bridge of Sighs, probably the second most famous bridge in Venice. After which we head back to the hotel for a little nap before going to dinner.
We stayed at a hotel about 100 feet from Rio Tera San Leonardo, which is one of the main streets in Venice and will take you to the train station after some street name changes. Being so close to a major street, it was easy to find a nice place to dine, after which we took a nice walk to see our little part of Venice at night before heading back for the evening.
I can’t believe from what I have read that most people only stay in Venice for one day and I recommend anyone planning a visit to Venice to stay at least 3 days, there are too many wonderful things to do. see just stay one day.
