Venice - Sunday 24th April

Easter Sunday, in many other places shops and attractions would be shut but not in Venice. We planned to do the main building attractions today, starting with the Bell Tower in St. Mark’s Square. The tower is 98.6 metres tall, and a cube tops the belfry. The alternate faces of which show the Lion of St. Mark and the female representation of Venice - Justice. A pyramidal spire caps the tower, at the top of which sits a golden weathervane in the form of the archangel Gabriel. The current tower was reconstructed in its present form in 1912 after the collapse of 1902. The view from the top was pretty incredible, it was great to get a visual perspective on how small the island actually is and how all those people fit on it at once!

Next was the Doge’s Palace. This was constructed from 1309 to 1324. It is famous for its gothic architecture and a bit different from other palaces in that the city’s prisons were in the palace itself. The palace's principal function was to provide a space for the government to carry out its civic responsibilities to its people. The Doge did, in fact, reside in the palazzo, however, he held no real power and was a representative figurehead for the Republic.

Inside the Doge's Palace

Me and St.George

The building was really awesome, the stonework and the use of space and light were amazing. The rooms were all just covered in gold and massive paintings, especially the map room which was a large room where the walls were painted as maps of the world from the 1500’s, and the “golden staircase” which was a marble staircase with gold mosaic in the ceiling above it.

The other function of this palace was that normal citizens who wanted to report a crime would write down what had happened and the names of 2 witnesses and sign it and then put the slip of the paper into this stone lion’s mouth where it would be read and dealt with.
 

The other structure of note was the Bridge of Sighs. This was the bridge that connected the Old Prisons, in the Doge's Palace, and the New Prisons, situated beyond the Palazzo River. The name is an invention of Romantic literature; legend says that from this bridge one could hear the sighs of the condemned as they were being led to prison. Its arched profile, suspended over the water of the Palazzo Rio, composes one of the most famous scenes of the city. Interestingly, its one of the most photographed placesd and Venice and thus the local government thought it would be a great idea to sell this area surrounding the bridge as advertising. See tacky picture. 

As the Basilica was holding mass for Easter Sunday, we decided to go to the Lido beach before coming back to go inside the Basilica. Lido Island is about 30 mins from St. Mark’s square, and is world renowned for holding the Venice Film Festival every year. The first thing we noticed was that this island had cars and roads! Something we had not had to deal with for a couple of days. It was a sunny day so we thought we would get some supplies from the local supermarket and have a picnic on the beach. This was a real treat; normal supermarkets in Italy are like the best deli’s in the world. We spent a good 15 minutes looking at all the cheese and meats you could get, not really understanding what anything was apart from mozzarella and ricotta!

We settled on mozzarella, tomatoes, salami and fresh rolls and a salad. YUM. Lou cannot even begin to explain how amazing the tomatoes were, they were so big and red and had so much flavour. The beach itself was disappointing. The sand wasn’t silky smooth like you think it should be, and it is quite built up like they had all the umbrellas and sun loungers in neat formations (that you has to pay for of course). We dipped a toe in the Adriatic sea but it was freezing cold as expected. Hamish decided it wasn’t worthy of his European Speedos debut.

Lou on Lido Beach

One of the many cruise ships we saw

Once back on the mainland we joined the queue for seeing inside the Basilica. One thing we had noticed about the Italians was that they don’t like to queue. In fact they don’t like waiting for anything so it is quite normal for them to push right in front of you after you have been in standing for 30 minutes in the sun. This was really frustrating because if you say anything they just pretend that they can’t understand English. Anyway once we were in we realised why it was free, whilst they say entry is free if you want to see any of the really cool stuff you have to pay extra, 4 Euros to go up to the top, 3 Euros to see some jewels etc. But the building is very cool, again covered in gold tiles that make it really bright. The floor was so uneven you really have to be careful where you walk due to the sediment and shifting of the ground. Before entering you are told no photos but once in the staff are too busy chatting you can do what you want. You can even take photos of them and they just smile – not really sure they are earning their pay cheque.

Inside St.Marks Basillica - awesome gold tiles

After an early start we were exhausted so we went back to the hotel for a lie down. We had planned to do the picnic thing again for dinner so we were back out by about 6.30pm, we picked up a roast chicken and olives and bread and more tomatoes and set ourselves in a little nook by the Grand Canal and drank more Bellini’s (Bellini’s out of a bottle is actually quite disgusting) and had strawberries and some crazy Venetian meringue thing for pudding. It was so nice and relaxing after a day of getting pushed around by a million people.

YUM picnic

Once the sun had set we wanted to get some night shots of St. Mark’s Square so we hopped on the ferry again (we spent a good chunk of time on these ferries or Vaporetto’s ). We thought that the square might have a bit more of a party atmosphere at night but the restaurants were mostly empty (probably due to the extortionate amount they charge). So we took some snaps and went home to sleep.

Hamish doesn't have many friends

Highlight: Our picnics, so much cheaper than eating out and more delicious.  
Lowlight: People pushing in.  
Interesting fact: The Grand Canal is 3,800 m long, 30–90 m wide, with an average depth of five meters, and as we found out on our picnic – there are no fish in it no matter how much chicken you drop in.