Our European Holiday Day 6 - Venice

Today we had the most dreamy day in Venice. Venice is such a beautiful, romantic city. Our hotel is across the bridge from the main island, so we got in a cab this morning and headed over. All cabs have to stop at the Palazalle Roma and then we walked approximately 1.5 miles to the Doge's Palace with a few stops along the way. We had about a mile before our first stop and maps took us through several random alleys. It happened to be right around when school was starting so there were lots of parents taking their kids to school. Eric and I discussed how this is another human experience regardless of what country you live in. Kids have to get to school and parents have to figure out how to get them there.

Venice was surprisingly much less touristy than Florence. There were plenty of tourists around, but there were also a lot of locals about their everyday business. Our first stop was about a mile walk and it was the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal. Seeing the Grand Canal for the first stop was breathtakingly beautiful. We took a few pictures before heading to the Doge's Palace. The Doge's Palace was built in the mid-14th century. Italy never really got into Gothic Architecture, so the Doge's Palace is a really beautiful modified gothic style building. There are two rows of arches, with the bottom row having pointed arches. This makes the building almost look like it's floating on the water. Amazingly, this building has been standing for 7 centuries.

The Doge's Palace was the center of government until nearly 1800. We toured several of the rooms, each one more grand than the last. The rooms all had a specific purpose - some were for bureaucratic positions, some were judicial, and some were legislative. Venice didn't ever have a written constitution, but somehow they stayed very organized in their government for several centuries. One interesting room talked about a bureaucratic office that was dedicated to registering aristocratic marriages and births to solidify the aristocratic class. All government positions were held by aristocrats. It was fascinating. The Doge's Palace also had an armory and a prison which we walked through. It was a really interesting building.

Our next stop was St. Marks Basilica. This is right next door to the Doge's Palace. This was the very first queue we had to wait in this entire trip and it took about 30 minutes to get into the church. The church is a medieval Gothic church (but without flying buttresses, Italy wouldn't have allowed that. It also didn't have stained glass windows). The ceiling is primarily gold mosaics - they were really lovely. It's so interesting to think that many people went to church there every week of their life and spent a lot of time staring at the mosaics. They didn't know how to read, so this was how they learned about the gospels.

We walked through the church and then we paid 5 euros to go to the terraces. They have a museum that has some of the old mosaics that they've removed and replaced. It also had 4 horses that were constructed likely in the second century BC and were plundered from Constantinople. The horses were on top of the church for several centuries until they were taken down and restored and then replicas were placed on the facade to protect the originals. It was pretty cool. We then spent about 30 minutes on the outside terrace of the church. The views were lovely, it wasn't crowded, and there was plenty of shade. That was one of my favorite moments of the day. It was so nice to relax for a few minutes above the beautiful St. Marks Square.

After visiting the church, I had to use the restroom, so naturally, we went into the Museum Correr. This is in St. Marks Square and when you purchase a ticket for the Doge's Palace it includes this museum as well. This museum was once the residence of the Venetian Empress and several other nobles. It was really lovely and fun to walk through. There was also an exhibit about printing and how revolutionary this was for the world. It wasn't a museum I would be in a hurry to do again, but it was free and had a restroom, so we called it a win.

After the restroom, we headed to the bell tower. This bell tower has an elevator, which was nice since we've climbed 500+ stairs each of the last 3 days, and our quads were burning. We waited about 20 minutes and then took the elevator to the top. The view from the top was sensational. Venice is such a beautiful city.  We stayed on top for about 15 minutes and then headed down to get lunch. Eric had found a place before we got here that was a quiet local place. They didn't have a printed menu, they just served what they cooked up that day. I had spaghetti with bolognese sauce and Eric had risotto with asparagus. Both were delightful. We also had bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar - surprisingly the first time we've had oil and vinegar with our bread this whole trip! It was delicious.

After lunch, we wandered around for a little bit. Venice has lots of little alleys with fun stores and it's easy to get lost. Eric suggested we do a gondola ride, so we found a gondola and hopped in. The gondola ride was beautiful and relaxing. We spent about 30 minutes in the gondola going through several back canals and then spent a few minutes on the Grand Canal. It was truly dreamy.

After the gondola, we found some gelato and then got lost in the city again. We had researched a church we could visit so we found it, but then ultimately didn't go in because it cost 7 euros, and we've seen plenty of churches over the last few days. We're also spoiled and feel like if a church doesn't have a sculpture done by Michelangelo, it's not worth visiting - only kidding. But really, we've seen a lot of churches with Michelangelo sculptures and they're worth the price of admission.

We then spent more time wandering through the city and window shopping for something for our curio cabinet. We had a lot of fun - it was so romantic and peaceful wandering through the city. We also got away from the tourist crowds and felt like it was a bit more local. We loved it. Around dinner time we headed back towards St. Marks Square and took a walk around the water there. It was lovely. Venice is a nice city to just walk around and get lost. For most of the afternoon, we didn't even turn on maps. We just walked and talked and enjoyed spending time together.

After our walk, we found a pizza place for dinner. We ordered a Margherita pizza and a four-cheese pizza. Both were delicious. After dinner, we walked back to St. Marks Square for the golden hour. The light was so lovely on the bell tower. We enjoyed spending a few more minutes in Venice before it was time to head back to our hotel. We took today at a slower pace and just enjoyed spending time in Europe. It was a fantastic day.