Day Eleven -- Venice

Our hotel obviously caters to Americans because we had omelets and bacon for breakfast with the first coffee that tasted like home. I don't need to have an American breakfast but it was nice. We chose to walk to St. Mark's Square when we realized how close it is. We were a bit early for our timed tickets into St. Mark's Basilica. So we found a place to sit down and listen to a podcast on what we would see inside, while we people watched. My favorite were the Leatherman winners from various countries.

 

The timed reservations turned out to be a great idea.  We bypassed a long line of people and went right into the basilica. 

 

We slowly made our way up the right side with a huge crowd of people. We broke off into a side room and paid 3E to see the treasury of St. Mark's -- two rooms of gold goblets, icons  and crosses, encrusted with precious gems. I found the opulence disturbing. Back into the basilica to join the crowd. We paid 2E to see the altar area. It was fascinating but even more opulent than what we had just seen. Mass was going on in the left transept and the chanting of the priest was ethereal. We crossed the nave and then down the right side towards the exit. We were never allowed in the middle section of the church. Signs every where told visitors not to talk or take videos.  Everyone must have felt those signs were only for others. People were taking photos constantly. The inside walls and ceiling are covered with mosaics -- enough to cover 1.5 football fields and most of it in gold. We had read that if you were lucky enough to get inside around noon the place literally glows. Back at the exit we paid 5E to climb to the balcony, which has a nice view of the interior, the real bronze horses (the ones on the outside of the church are just replicas) and an outdoor balcony with an excellent view of the square.  We stayed outside quite awhile, recording the bronze men on the clock tower clanging noon and snapping photos of the Square.

 

We got back inside to see the interior glow. It was beautiful and amazing but I felt like the opulence did not reflect the life and death of Jesus. It left me feeling discouraged. We exited the basilica and found a touristy spot around the corner to sit down and get some respite. Next we used our San Marco passes and skipped the line into the Doge's Palace. They were also having a special exhibit of a few paintings of Hieronymous Bosch -- a painter from the 16th century that did such bizarre paintings with monsters, often with a religious theme. We decided to pay to see the exhibit.  This is a painting of the crucifixion of a female saint --notice her beard.

 

At the end of the exhibit was a chance to sit down and put on a virtual reality headset to experience his works of the hereafter.

 

We left the exhibit and headed into the Doge Palace -- which is one grand room after another. After awhile I began to feel like I was in IKEA and I had to walk through the whole huge place in order to get out. We skipped the prison and the Bridge of Sighs.  We were just too tired to see it all. We returned to our room to rest our weary feet. 

 

At 6:30 p.m. we headed out again. We took the #2 vaporetto to Pizzale Roma, got off and caught the #1 back down the Grand Canal. We got seats in the very front and put our headphones on to listen to an audio tour of what we were seeing. It was fun to sit up front and see all the wonder the canal has to offer. 

 

But by the time we were done it was 8 p.m. and I was getting a headache. We caught the  #1 back up the canal and ate dinner in our hotel at 9:30 p.m. We fell asleep around midnight to the sounds of a bachelor party on the Rialto Bridge, in which the groomsmen were singing, "Don't get married!"