Venice, The Queen of Adriatic

St Mark's Basilica

Historic city of Venice is described by many as Queen of the Ardiatic, City os Islands, City of masks, Floating city, City of bridges and City of canals ... and when you visit Venice everything seems right! For me it looked like a unique city with so many bridges across those islands!  It seems there are more than a hundred islands separated by more than hundred canals and  they are connected by around 400 bridges! With the unique cityscapes, art and cultural heritage tourism is a major part of livelihood for venetians. The tour of Venice was fun though everything I saw was touristy! Venice is considered to be a living museum and IMO it is also a tourist trap! 

The world famous Gondola ride!

Piazza del San Marco, that is St Mark's Square of Venice! There is an imposing statue of the horse-borne victorious King in the square. Well, you will find such statues in every city but, what interested me were the other sculptures around it. Venice is a city and is also considered to be the goddess who emerged from the Adriatic sea and the Lion of Venice- symbol of Venice. On one side of the structure Goddess is depicted in torn clothes with a broken sword and the lion is trapped and biting the chains which essentially is due to the Austrian oppression. On the other side the Lion is roaring free and the lady is sitting in a proud posture and is in regal clothes.

Statue of Venice (Goddess of Venus) and the Lion with the book at St Mark's square

The Basilica di San Marco- Built in Byzantine style the Basilica is symbol of wealth and dominates the St Mark's Square. The motifs and the mosaic are made of gold which was plundered during the Byzantine battles ages past. The sculptures here were brought from distant places of Byzantine. The Paper Gate or Porta della Carta has the winged lion which is symbol of Venice and St Mark himself, with the book representing the State of Venice and the King. 

Lion of Venice, book and the King on Paper Gate, Tetrachs of Roman empire

The Tetrarchs- At some time the Roman empire was rules by four emperors, Two older emperors (Augusti) and two younger emperors (Caesars). An older and an younger was paired to rule eastern and western halves of the empire. The portrait of four emperors of Roman empire is fixed at a corner of facade of the basilica. They all look almost identical except that Augusti and Caesars. Made of porphyry the sculpture symbolizes unity and stability.

Bridge of sigh and Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower!)

Torre dell'Orologio or St Mark's clock tower- which faces the basilica is very interesting. It shows the time of the day, lunar phase and zodiac signs. Bridge of Sighs (Ponte di sospiri) is a bridge that connects the palace and the prison. This enclosed bridge has windows through which the convicts see the last view of Venice before they step into the prison. Well, I visited the bridge during renovation work and hence the blue covers!

Venetian Masks

Venetian masks!!! Yes, they were on display everywhere! Small, big, colorful and much more! I too bought one as a souvenir :) These elaborate carnival masks are centuries old tradition of Venice. Well, there is a long history and there are many types of masks!

Trip to Rialto Bridge was not in our guided itinerary and So I went looking for it myself during our personal time. Well, I walked and walked ... I saw it! There are shops inside that enclosure. On the way back I lost the way in that maze of lanes and by-lanes! OMG! My feet were hurting by the time I found my way! But, I saw much of Venice because of that until long after sunset!

The Grand Canal and the romantic Rialto Bridge

Well, on this trip to one of the beautiful cities in the world I took ride on the new waters- Adriatic Sea! How can I miss the Gondola ride! It was fun! There was a guy singing a song too! I didn't understand one word of that song but it was kind of cute! Soon after it started raining heavily and the walkway got so slippery that I slipped twice! I was stingy to pay 3 euros to buy an umbrella and I walked in the rain! It was enough fun that I could write a post only on that experience!

Glass expert from Murano Glass factory

Well, package tour and no touristy thing?! Well, we visited the popular Murano glass factory and had a demo on glass blowing! It was great! I have a video here for you to watch!

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Scrapbook- A Travel Blog by Kusum Sanu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.