Doge's Palace

The Doge's Palace is also in St. Mark's Square. The doge was the ruling duke of Venice, and his palace was his home and it was where the government met. It's built in the Venetian Gothic style.



Here I am with some columns. Take a look at the columns. Does anything look unusual? Over time, St. Mark's Square has been sinking. (The rest of Venice is, too. Many of the buildings don't use the ground-level floor). To combat this, every so often the pavement in St. Mark's Square is removed, a layer of sand is put down, and then the pavement is put back on the Square. The last time this happened was 2006. Over time of doing this, the columns here look disproportional; they look too short!
A few of the palace's nicknames are The Wedding Cake, The Table Cloth, and The Pink House.

Some close-up shots (-Notice the winged lion?!)





We went inside, and it was all very beautiful. Here's Laura in the golden staircase!

St. Mark's Square

We walked around St. Mark's Square many different times. Sometimes we were on our way inside the Basilica, or we were headed up the bell tower. Other times we just strolled and enjoyed the Square itself. As I said earlier, Venice was our favorite town we visited. It just seemed nice and relaxing, and alive, too.

An aerial view of the Square



The Doge's Palace

Views from the water


Notice the winged lion on the pillar? The winged lion is the symbol of Mark, and it's everywhere in Venice!!!

We had fun on this lion!!!


Here's another 24 hour clock!!! Also, see above the clock face, where the Roman numeral is on the left and the number 30 is on the right? This was the first "digital" clock. It changed time every 5 minutes. Pretty cool, huh?!


The Campanile (bell tower)

A view of the main part of the Square


I liked the arches and that I could see St. Mark's Basilica through them!




This is the Bridge of Sighs. (It's under scaffolding this year, but just know that a palace is to its right and a prison is to its left). Legend has it that, while prisoners were escorted from the palace to the prison, they would stop on this bridge and sigh, knowing that it would be quite a while, (if at all), before they would be able to see the canals of Venice again. That's how it got its name.

It was late, and these guys were just setting up! The Square stays lively for quite a while!

St. Mark's Basilica

After our gondola ride, we finally got to look around St. Mark's Square. Usually the Square is packed full of people, but it wasn't bad at all when we were there! Maybe it was because we went in the afternoon instead of the morning, or maybe it wasn't quite the highest point of tourist season yet, but it was really nice that it was not so crowded!

A side-view

An interesting feature of St. Mark's Basilica is its combination of different architectural styles. Its facade shows so many different cultures and architecture:
Arches over the doors - Roman style

Columns - Greek style - And notice that the marble does not match! I love that!

Mosaics - Byzantine style

Pinnacles along the roof line - French Gothic

Onion-shaped domes - Islamic style


The element that struck me the most about St. Mark's Basilica was how colorful it was. Just look at the bright colors in these pictures! After centuries, the colors are still incredibly vibrant!







This is one of the mosaics in the entry way, I guess you might call it. I don't know what story this mosaic tells, but we did see one that was about Noah's ark!

We walked through the inside of the Basilica, but we were not allowed to take pictures. The floor was beautiful; it had so many different designs in it. Mark of the New Testament is supposedly buried inside. It was neat for me to go inside because in the music history course that I teach, I teach that the architecture of this building, which has two choir lofts, led to composers writing in a polychoral style. This was a late Renaissance style that started in Venice and spread all throughout Europe, and it all happened just because of the architecture of this building!

After walking through the main floor, we went upstairs and looked at some artifacts from the Basilica. Some of my favorites were the HUGE books of music! There were 7 books on display. (And of course I enjoyed them!)

We did take one picture inside the Basilica. It was in this stairway on our way up to the museum, where we saw the music books and the artifacts.

We also saw the 4 bronze horses that have been stolen from one ruler or another time and time again when each ruler has been conquered. Here I am with the replicas that are outside where the originals used to stand. We saw the originals inside.

We had a great view of the Square.

Gondola Ride

When we got back from Murano Island, Laura and I planned on going to St. Mark's Square and actually spend some time on the land, since we had already spent a large portion of the day on the water. But we walked by this gondola stand, (viewed here from 3 different angles!)




So we asked how much a gondola ride was. The guy said 80 Euros, but he gave us a "special price" of 70 Euros. But we had these other plans already - to go walk around for a while instead of sitting or standing in a boat again. So we said we'd come back later, and we walked away. THEN a different guy came running after us and said, "It's better for you, it's better for me - 60 Euros." So we took him up on it!

Our gondolier was a 4th generation gondolier in his family! That was cool! He said he didn't have to go to school for it, like so many other people do, because he had been able to practice as he grew up. He also said that people who want to be gondoliers have to pass a test about Venetian history. I thought that was awesome!


Going under a bridge

You definitely get a different feel for Venice from a gondola-perspective. Many of the canals are very quiet and peaceful.


I love this entryway!

The red and gold flag is the Venetian flag.

Three bridges

A quiet canal

Another interesting fact about gondolas: They are lopsided, so to speak. They are built that way so that the gondolier can stand on one side without affecting his ability to steer.

I also found it interesting that gondoliers don't exert a lot of energy to "row" or move the boat.

We loved all the window boxes with flowers in them!!!


Looking up!