Florence Day 2

It was cool & very windy! After a delicious breakfast, we headed to the Vaporetti water buses to start our tour of the Grand Canal. Venice is made up of 117 small islands separated by 100 canals & 400 bridges! There are 25 miles of canals which serve as drains into the Grand Canal. Technically there are only 3 canals & the other canal as are considered rivers. While so much of what we have send recently has a a Roman past, Venice does not but was created in part by the fall of the Roman Empire. Inhabitants from the mainland moved to the islands to escape the invading barbarians.

We saw police,  ambulance & fire engine boats in action! It was a busy day on the Grand Canal. Our first stop was Piazza San Marco. The line was short for the Bascilica so decided to tour it. You climb up a steep staircase to go to the museum & the Loggia dei Cavelli. The Loggia is a balcony overlooking Piazza San Marco. There are wonderful views!

It seems that a lot that is in St. Marks was stolen....so much for the Ten Commandments! St. Mark's body was stolen around 700 AD (2 Venician merchants "rescued" the bones) in Moslem occupied Alexandria. The first structure burned down in 976 & current structure was started in the 11th century. One guidebook refers to the building style as "Early Ransack" as much of the building materials were looted from buildings in the Venetian empire! The Venetians stole 4 bronze & gold horses from fellow Christians during the looting of Constantinople. Napoleon stole them next & took to Paris but the French did return them.  The mosaics were the part that I appreciated the most. When we entered the Bascillica it was still cloudy outside so dark inside. The sun came out & all of sudden it looked like someone had turned a spotlight on the gold mosaics making them gleam!

We walked around the Piazza & it wasn't flooded! The last time we were here we had to walk on
raised ramps. Susan & I had bought paintings on the waterfront & wanted to see if we could find him
again. He was in Germany but his father was there. He was grumpy until he realized that I wasn't try to take pictures but show him pictures of his work that we had bought the last time...& that we were from NC. A gallery in Asheville displays his works & he visits every year. Wonder what his paintings sell for there?

Later on in the afternoon we decided to get "lost". It is a fun way to walk the back streets & bridges of Venice. Fred also learned that he loves fried fish, it is a different experience in Italy than at the beach! Our fried fish included shrimp, calamari, sardines & crayfish! We took the water bus back to our hotel & it was pretty to see all the lights on the Grand Canal. One guidebook said "that many of the palaces facing the Grand Canal have chandeliered elegance above mossy, empty ground floors" since laws prohibit any changes to these buildings.