Italy: Venice: 11 of 12

May 01, 2025

Surprise!!! A gondola just leaving our hotel's dock. And yes, no motors on these crafts. There are larger motorized vessels which do the heavy work, but they stage at other docks and don't ply these waters... and other, maybe 30-foot taxis that do ply the narrows, but are limited to no wake.

And, onus round... Out of the blue, fellow Tauk traveler Harold sent me a capture from (drum roll) across the canal from our hotel, the Splendid Venice, with a gondola just launching... Thanks Harold!

There is one "main drag" through Venice, and tons of side "streets". Here's a look at the main canal; note the presence of one of the aforementioned thirty-footers (near left) and of the gondola (near right)... one of the larger crafts is farther left (white top):

And here's a Google map - the red "pin" in the middle is the location where the photo (above) was taken... note the small blue canals throughout the rest of the city:

Also note our hotel, the Splendid Venice, just south of the pin - the site of the first photo in this entry.

So, Venice. We had to buy a pass for our time there. One pass each. I thought it was a bit of a Eurograb, until I got to Venice. It was PACKED. We never got "carded", so I suspect it's more of a (minor) deterrent to try to keep the crowds away. It didn't seem to work during our visit... so maybe it is just a money grab:

Our foci here were the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, and the Piazza San Marco.

The Doge's Palace was the governmental seat of Venice, and housed several curiosities... a jail, for example. This is inside the Bridge of Sighs, Ponte dei Sospiri, over the Rio dei Palazzo:

The accused were transported to face their adjudication via this bridge, no doubt pondering their fate... hence the name.

We did note one of the original cell doors:

And I found it interesting that the original lock had to be "replaced" by a more modern version (closeup from the photo above):

In my house this would have been done due to someone losing the key... I would have been blamed.

In any event, the accused were brought before the court via back halls and staircases, eventually to stand before the Council of Ten:

Quite the hall of justice... but note, it's within these walls — behold the classic view of Doge's Palace, my interpretation:

The entrance features The Golden Staircase (note the handrail, right, going down):

And, a closeup of the ceiling:

Stepping back, a tourist shot of the Sala del Maggiore Consiglio, the Hall of the Great Council:

I have many more shots of the interior, but we must move on... late afternoon, Camponile, Piazza, and Basilica di San Marco:

As we approached the church for our evening tour, this structure (essentially a guards' station back in ghe day) at the front of the Camponile, facing the church, was beautifully lit... the Loggetta del Sansovinono:

That lighting should have cued me for what was coming... alas, it did not.

So we turned to enter Basilica di San Marco, (Wikipedia also notes the Venetian version of the name, Baxélega de San Marco) and who greeted us? Why, the Four Tetrarchs, of course:

We had no idea of the story of San Marco... at least I did not. We weren't even inside yet and we looked up to see this:

San Marco had been the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt and died a martyr there. But in 828, Venetians disguised themselves and stole relics of San Marco in Egypt and brought them back to Venice... that's the bundle on the atop a basket on the left, above, with the Venetians still dressed in their "camouflage" Middle Eastern garb.

Mark's Gospel was written probably between 60 and 70 AD (or CE).

Once inside, we viewed the east-west portal, which grants access between the two main sides of the church:

As we sat taking in all the church interior that we could see... we were treated to this view:

And then, they turned on the lights... the chancel with the twelve apostles up front:

Let's zoom in a bit:

And closer still:

San Marco indeed.

The story of the reclamation of his remains doesn't end quite yet... first, we must go to the "basement" of the church (my term).

The Piazza floods... as a matter of fact, our tour group saw a number of "risers" (my term again" stacked here and there around the Piazza. The risers are used when the water is high, in order to provide a dry walkway.

Thus it's curious that a secondary church worship space would be situated below the church proper. But here we are:

And it's here that, for a time, San Marco's remains - at one point, maybe not here but somewhere, his remains were hidden under pork (not my term... really, pork) such that the "visitors" from the Middle East, searching for poor Marco, would be less inclined to search just there.

In any event, we were told that this crypt contained said remains until it was safe to place them elsewhere: