Day 21: Venice - Piazza San Marco, St. Mark's Basilica, Doge's Palace and Wandering
Venice is unbelievably beautiful. Every side street, every canal, every building is picturesque. Jeff described it perfectly when he said, "Venice is beautiful decay." It is old and decayed and even sinking but it is stunning and beautiful and perfect at the same time. I love it!
This morning we took the Vaparetto to Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square). It is the principal square in Venice and is very impressive. On one end is St. Mark's Basilica, the church that was built to house the remains of St. Mark (as in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that was smuggled out of Alexandria in a barrel of pork and brought to Venice by two merchants. St. Mark is the patron Saint of Venice and he is represented all over the city by a winged lion.
The church itself is unique and gorgeous, with detailed mosaics depicting the smuggling of St. Mark's body and the merchants bringing it to Venice and presenting it the the Doge (the political leader of Venice). Inside, the murals cover almost every inch of every wall, depicting biblical scenes. It is really so cool but you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. Bummer! After touring inside the chapel, we headed up to the second floor where we went to the balcony overlooking the city and walked through the Museum which housed all kinds of unique artifacts and tapestries and plunders from Constantinople.
We also toured the Doge's Palace which is right next door to the Basilica. Jeff read us the walking tour and it felt like a scavenger hunt to find all of the things listed in the book from the "mouth of secrets" to hidden doors and the Bridge of Sighs to the prison cells. Jeff, Kira and I loved it but the younger kids were burning out on churches and buildings, but they did like the prisons. Hahaha!
Luckily, we can usually distract or bribe them with gelato. Calvin has been amazingly disciplined! After his first gelato, he decided he wasn't going to have any more. He said no to probably 20 or 25 gelato stops over 10 days and didn't have any more gelato until the very last day. I think I said no to 2. I was so impressed! We literally had gelato 3 or 4 times a day for the 12 days we were in Italy. Yikes!
Later in the evening, most of the kids were ready to just chill but Jeff, Kira and I still wanted to explore and maybe find a place to sit down and eat dinner. We wandered for an hour and a half looking for a place we thought was a good price, cute atmosphere and hopefully good food. We talked and laughed and walked forever! Jeff was so indecisive and we were cracking up how we ended up walking in a huge circle and eating at a little restaurant 1 minute from our house. We called Kate and she came down and had a sit-down dinner with us. It was a lot of fun!
This morning we took the Vaparetto to Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square). It is the principal square in Venice and is very impressive. On one end is St. Mark's Basilica, the church that was built to house the remains of St. Mark (as in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that was smuggled out of Alexandria in a barrel of pork and brought to Venice by two merchants. St. Mark is the patron Saint of Venice and he is represented all over the city by a winged lion.
The church itself is unique and gorgeous, with detailed mosaics depicting the smuggling of St. Mark's body and the merchants bringing it to Venice and presenting it the the Doge (the political leader of Venice). Inside, the murals cover almost every inch of every wall, depicting biblical scenes. It is really so cool but you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. Bummer! After touring inside the chapel, we headed up to the second floor where we went to the balcony overlooking the city and walked through the Museum which housed all kinds of unique artifacts and tapestries and plunders from Constantinople.
We also toured the Doge's Palace which is right next door to the Basilica. Jeff read us the walking tour and it felt like a scavenger hunt to find all of the things listed in the book from the "mouth of secrets" to hidden doors and the Bridge of Sighs to the prison cells. Jeff, Kira and I loved it but the younger kids were burning out on churches and buildings, but they did like the prisons. Hahaha!
Luckily, we can usually distract or bribe them with gelato. Calvin has been amazingly disciplined! After his first gelato, he decided he wasn't going to have any more. He said no to probably 20 or 25 gelato stops over 10 days and didn't have any more gelato until the very last day. I think I said no to 2. I was so impressed! We literally had gelato 3 or 4 times a day for the 12 days we were in Italy. Yikes!
Later in the evening, most of the kids were ready to just chill but Jeff, Kira and I still wanted to explore and maybe find a place to sit down and eat dinner. We wandered for an hour and a half looking for a place we thought was a good price, cute atmosphere and hopefully good food. We talked and laughed and walked forever! Jeff was so indecisive and we were cracking up how we ended up walking in a huge circle and eating at a little restaurant 1 minute from our house. We called Kate and she came down and had a sit-down dinner with us. It was a lot of fun!
A painting of a doge. They wear those funny hats that sort of look like Smurf hats.
Looking out through the Bridge of Sighs. It was called that because it was the last glimpse of freedom before the prisoner was taken to serve his sentence.
Paul Newman. ;)
Always looking for a spot to rest our tired legs.
Thew views of the Grand Canal from our apartment were awesome!
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