Our second full day in Venice we focused on what tourists do immediately on reaching Venice: Piazza San Marco or St Mark’s Square. Part of the square was closed off with chairs in that area due to an event later. There was also some work going on to prevent flooding of Piazza San Marco.
We got in the line for St Mark’s Basilica. It is a great church with mosaics and decorations on the facade. Inside the church is full of mosaics depicting St Mark’s life as well as Virgin Mary and other subjects. Pala d’Oro is dazzling and we liked the Treasury too.
Going upstairs to the Galleria and the Museo di San Marco was of course required for us museum lovers, but it also gives a good view of the church interior and you can go outside for a nice look at the square. The four horses that you see outside on the Basilica in the photograph below are of course replicas and the originals are inside in the museum.
Since we were getting hungry, we decided to have a light lunch at Caffè Quadri.
Doge’s Palace or Palazzo Ducale is where the Venetian rulers lived and of course it’s worth visiting (I could even live there, especially with artwork from such luminaries in every room).
Museo Correr has some Venetian art and history, though its collection isn’t great.
Then it was time to go up to the top of the Campanile. Fortunately an elevator takes you up to where the bells are housed. It provides a good view of Venice, the lagoon and the mainland. You can see the photographs I took from there at the end on the map.
We went for dinner at Osteria al Garanghelo which had decent food and was not expensive.
Lots of photographs on Google Maps follow under the fold below.
