City of ports

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From Cinque Terre, we caught a mid-afternoon train that deposite us in Venice that evening. Needing to check into our hostel, we grabbed the first bus (a boat) and headed of to Lido, a small island just off the coast where we stayed both nights. The hostel was actually a hotel; quite an unexpected treat! We'd assumed that we would have to spin the wheel of roommates one more time, but this one was all to ourselves. Spirits high with our surprise good fortune, we headed odd to the city proper to enjoy Venice at night.

My first impression was to see Venice as an elaborately architectured port town. This notion wasn't disabused. The picturesque canals and romantic bridges certainly exist in profusion, and the place really does look like all the romantic oil paintings you've ever seen of it, but in flavor, feel and fact, it's basically a specialized port town without beaches.

That first night included most of the major sights of Venice that I's come to know better over the next day and a bit, including the most amazing square that I've yet encountered in Italy, a country whose main product seems to be elaborate Piazzas. I believe it's called San Marcos, and it's an L-shaped affair, appearing to be two large continuous rectangles hinged at the middle. Coming fro the port side, the first monument seen is the Venetian Palace, which abuts a church that appears to have been made by a medieval Disney. The palace is beautiful and huge, but almost completely overwhelmed by the intricacy of the church immediately behind it.

Catty corner from the church is a large zodiacal clock tower, which took us a bit of time to figure out, but we think that it represents the year, month, day and hour in an intricate, interesting and confusing manner. On top of the church is a famous bell tower with two marble men "striking" the bell on the hour.

Dominating the square, however, are a series of columns and arches running up and down all three sides of the rectangle perpendicular to the port. They run for several hundred meters, and are placed to make the square appear to continue into infinity. Several hundred of the small arches dominate the piazza, and imbue a sense of drama and frozen action that Renaissance painters would kill to have achieved in their art. This piazza is without equal, or even competitor.

The rest of Venice, and the rest of our time in Venice, was dominated by frequent incursions into the interior for the express purpose of getting lost amid the canals and bridges. Venetian glass shops were profligate in their bizarre creativity, and the masks certainly lived up to their reputation as beautiful and creepy. Quite a romantic town, although the three days there was enough for the both of us.

Back to Rome!

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Photos

Outside San Marco
San Marco, possibly the most beautiful church in the world, in Venice