Images of Italy: Anniversary in Venezia (05/26

To celebrate our anniversary we made the 3.5 hour drive to Venice (Venezia). Derrick had been to Venice once before, but this was my first visit.

On Saturday morning our first stop was the Ducal Palace where the region of Venice was ruled from when it was an independent country.

Palazzo Ducale

The Giant's Stairway

Across from the Palace, over the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri), were the cellblocks where the many prisoners were kept

Uh oh, Derrick's been arrested by the Terrible Ten

Next on our list of sights was St. Mark's Cathedral.

Piazza San Marco

Mosaics on the outside of St. Mark's

Pala d'Oro altar screen at St. Mark's

The altar screen contains 300 emeralds, 300 sapphires, 400 garnets, 100 amethysts, and 1,300 pearls!

We also made a trip to the church and scuola (school) of San Rocco. Inside the Scuola Grande the entire ceiling is covered in gold and paintings. This was Derrick's favorite museum.

Church of San Rocco

Scuola Grande of San Rocco.

Our last stop of the day was the Santa Maria della Salute church. We were pretty worn out after this; 3 churches, 1 palace, and a museum were enough for one day.

The Salute

Interior of the Salute.

Our hotel was a nice little place on the Lido. The Lido (beach) is the island just south of the main part of Venice, and we were able to get back and forth to the Lido on the vaporetti (water buses).

Hanging out on our balcony.

That evening we found a little restaurant on the canal and were able to watch all the boats sailing by as we ate. At the table next to us was a group of students from Vanderbilt on a summer study abroad program. It was nice to be able to talk with other Americans for a little bit and hear about their adventures.

This was probably around 8:30 PM. The sun doesn't set until around 9:30 PM here in the summer. The Vanderbilt students took this picture for us =-)

On Sunday morning the Venice equivalent of a fun run was going on with hundreds of boats and people rowing through the canals in an event called Vogalunga. It was interesting to watch them rowing by, but it made transportation very difficult. The majority of the vaporetti weren't running, so we had to walk through the maze of Venice's streets to get to our remaining sights.

On Sunday we went to the Ca' d'Oro museum as well as the old Jewish Ghetto. Unfortunately the museum in the ghetto was closed for a religious holiday, so we will have to come back to visit some other time.