Venice, our last stop before flying home. I’m writing this from my couch the morning after landing back in Canada, and going through these photos I almost can’t believe I was there. Venice is one of those places that feels utterly fictional even when you’re physically there. It’s beautiful and dreamlike - and it’s also a functioning city with a whole life of its own that continues around you as you walk the maze of streets in a haze of wonder.
It was very hard to pare down all the photos we took here to just the million below, so I will let them speak for themselves…
We had a big train day from Cinque Terre to Venice, with a stop in the impressive Milano train station.
First day in Venice, wandering the streets and canals
The Grand Canal that snakes all the way through the city
La Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a museum and organization dedicated to San Rocco, the patron saint of plague victims. For hundred of years the organization has performed charitable works in Venice, as well as housing incredible works of art done by its members over the centuries. Most notable of these is Tintoretto, who lived and painted in the 1500’s. Most of the painting in this building is by him, with a few contributions by other artists of the time. This is the staircase, lined with huge paintings depicting the plagues that so decimated Venice starting in the 1300’s.
The main hall, one of the most incredible rooms I have ever set foot in,
Ceiling
The room is lined with these amazing wooden sculptures, the likes of which I have never seen. Really really interesting!
We finally wound our way through the streets to Piazza San Marco and the amazing St Mark’s Basilica. Wow!
Back in the day, Venice was not recognized as a proper city because it didn’t own the physical remains of any saints. When things started to really roll here Venetians had to do something about this, so they took the corpse of St. Mark the Apostle from Alexandria and in 828 built the Basilica di San Marco to house him. It has been almost constantly worked on throughout the centuries as pieces of art, sculpture and other riches were brought here from all over the world and placed in and on the building. Even after all we’ve seen, this place blew our minds.
There are over 4,000 square metres of mosaic in this place, most of this seems to be in gold and lining the ceilings
Right up close!
The original horses! The ones standing atop the entrance outside now are replicas, as these are so old they needed to be better preserved.
Upstairs and outside
Piazza San Marco from above
This is the entrance to a hotel, reachable by gondola for the fancy types :D
The shop windows in Venice are next level. Wild, weird and amazing!
Day 2 was a trip to Murano, one of the many little islands just off the main city. Murano’s big thing is hand made glass art. You see it all over Venice, and it’s incredibly impressive. We had so much fun looking at all the shops and windows full of colourful and creative glass stuff!
An EYE BALL
An electric guitar made of solid glass. Presumably it’s legit, the strings and bridge etc all looked pretty real
Lil glass beers
We took the sea bus from Murano over to Venice’s cemetery - an entire island dedicated to this purpose. It was Napoleon who decided to make this happen in the 1800’s, as the city proper has never worked for burials due to there being famously very little dirt there. As far as European cemeteries go it’s very young, but so interesting and there’s some gorgeous stonework to be seen…
The family plots and mausoleums are the most unique I have ever seen. You can really see how they were built with the intent to be somewhat comfortable to visit and pray in - though many have now gotten overgrown or otherwise gone unvisited over the years.
Sea bus on the Grand Canal after a long day of island hopping
Day 3 starts with the best coffee and cornettos in town, right around the corner from our bnb. We went here every day :D
Unbelievably we got several hours of blue skies and sunshine on our last day, and we just strolled the streets.
Thank you Venice!
Espresso to go - the teeny tiny paper cups kill me :D!
Touristing hard
Last pranzo in the sunny piazza
Risotto and pizza - one of the best meals we had on our whole trip, which is saying a LOT cause the food is so damn good everywhere
Masks are a big Venice thing. Creepy ones too.
Sigh. Last piazza caffe
The smallest elevator ever, in our bnb building
Very moody skies as we leave for the airport at 3am