I had five days of easy me time in Venice. The whole city was beautiful, and I found Venetian history more and more interesting the more I learned about it.
The heart of Venice is the Grand Canal, and you can get anywhere easily using the canal's vaporetti (water buses). Buildings with elaborate facades, many palatial houses, line the canal. Two of my favorites were the Ca'd'Oro ("House of Gold") and the Fondaco dei Turchi (a former Turkish trader warehouse, now the natural history museum).
The Piazza San Marco (Square of St. Mark) is Venice's main square, and the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, and St. Mark's Campanile are there. My picture from the canal shows the Campanile on the left and the Doge’s Palace on the right.
The Doge was the Venetian Republic's elected leader, and the Doge's palace included government spaces. My picture below shows the ginormous Chamber of the Great Council. The Republic was also an early police state, and the palace has a "lion's mouth" postbox - a place to leave anonymous denunciations - and a prison.
A church was originally built on the site of St. Mark's Basilica in the 9th century to house the supposed remains of St. Mark, stolen from Alexandria. The present building dates from the 11th and 12th centuries, and the high altar now houses the supposed remains.
The basilica reflects Venice and Constantinople's linked history. Venice was originally part of the Byzantine empire, and the basilica’s five-domed design is Byzantine, executed by artists from Constantinople. Later in the 13th century, crusaders with Venetian ships and money sacked Constantinople, and loot was taken to the basilica, including relics and the Horses of Saint Mark.
Cameras aren't allowed inside the basilica, but I was able to sneak a grainy shot of the gilded interior after hours, through a grate in the door.
Besides the basilica, Venice also has two vast gothic churches, Santi Giovanni e Paolo (a.k.a. "San Zanipolo") and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (or just "the Frari"). San Zanipolo is from the 14th century and has many doges’ tombs. The Frari dates to the mid-15th century and has art by Titian and Bellini, and I was surprised to find Monteverdi’s tomb there. My picture is from inside the Frari.
I also took the vaporetto to visit the cathedral of Santa Maria and church of Santa Fosca on the island of Torcello near Venice. Santa Maria (left rear in my picture, including the tower) was founded in 639 A.D. Santa Fosca (right front) is a Byzantine church from the 11th and 12th centuries. It was simple and peaceful inside. On the way back to Venice, I was lucky to fall in with another tourist at the vaporetto stop and we spent the rest of the day exploring.
At its peak, Venice was the world’s great sea power. Its shipyard, the Arsenal, was practically a small city in itself, and could build a galley from start to finish in one day. Unfortunately the area is an Italian naval base now, so I couldn’t explore it, and my picture just shows the entrance. I sat down there to have some cookies from my bag, but a naval officer shooed me off.
Carnival masks have a long history in Venice.
