Italy Trip - Part II - Venice

We reached Venice railway station Santa Lucia at 11.10PM. We had booked a hotel in Venice and it was just 5 minutes walk from the railway station. We dropped our luggage in the hotel room and came out for a walk. Venice sits at the heart of a lagoon, separated from the open sea by a line of defensive sand bars. Most of the city is connected through canals and public transportation is through water buses (vaporetti) and gondolas (small private boats). I had read that cars and other mopeds are banned in Venice, which was true, I couldn't find any.

Next day morning, we studied Venice city map and sorted out the sights to visit. The first place we selected was Piazza San Marco, the city's most famous square - which later cames out to be a bad decision as we spent half of the day there because of huge tourist crowd and long wait in queues in San Marco square. We bought daily boat pass and took boat no 82 to go Piazza San Marco, which is located almost on the other end of Grand Canal. A trip along the intriguing Grand Canal was a pleasure in itself, and one that you can never tire of.

Grand Canal

The main attractions in San Marco square are Campanile (tall bell tower) and Basilica di San Marco - St Mark's resting place, one of the world's greatest medieval buildings. The piazza was too crowded and there were long queues to enter both the bell tower and the Basilica. We first stood in the bell tower queue. Campanile is Venice's tallest building (98.5m) and it says that a view from top even extends to Alps on a clear day. Though we couldn't see Alps from top, but the view from top was absolutely unforgettable, more than worth the wait to get in. It gave a fantastic view of the city together with the Grand Canal, which was really beautiful.

A view from top of Campanile

Another view from top of Campanile

Then we stood in the next queue to enter Basilica di San Marco and the museum. The cathedral was looking very beautiful inside and there were many things worth watching in the museum. These include the famous bronze horse, the Translation of the Body of St. Mark to the Basilica above the leftmost door, the west facade's only original mosaic, and the superb Romanesque carvings above the central door etc.

The other places we visited are Santa Maria della Salute, a church situated at the entrance to the Grand Canal, Accademia (painting gallery), Campo S stefano etc. We missed few museums because we reached late in these places only to find it closed. However, we enjoyed walking through Venice's narrow streets and visiting the shops in the streets. Venice is famous for the glass works and you can find amazing pieces of glass works together with carnival masks as main attractions of most of these shops.

A Condolla passing through a sub canal



Grand Canal -one of many bridges


Shops - selling glass works and Carnival masks

Finally in the evening, we hired a gondolla and had a nice relaxing trip through the sub canals and the Grand Canal. Gondolla is a superior looking small boat, well decorated and having 4-5 seats, which is usually hired for private ride in the canals. I found this gondolla trip bit expensive as it costs 60€ for half an hour trip.

We walked around the city in the evening and later had dinner from a Chinese resturant and waited for our train to Rome in Venice railway station.