π
2011-09-06 01:01
in Italy2011, Ntrips, Trips
We arrived in Venice a little late the first day due to a strike from public workers, but thankfully Italy added a law that prevented them from striking during rush hours, so we were able to get a train after 17:00 from Bologna, and get to Venice.
We had a few hours of daylight after arriving:
Getting to Venice was quick with 300kph trains like in France
Fresh off the train, to the Vaporetto to Piazza St Marco close to where our condo was
There we are
The next morning, we went out for sighseeing and started with Piazza San Marco and its beautiful Basillica:
one of many many churches
Venice has lots of small plazas
Piazza San Marco
Basillica Di San Marco
Across the Plazza, we started with the less busy Correr Museum before Doge's Palace which we did the next day
Then, we went up the Campanile (clock tower) for a nice panoramic view:
Doge's Palace
For the rest of the day, we went to see the Accademia Gallery:
from a random art museum
view from Accademia Bridge
The following morning, we went back to Piazza San Marco to see Doge's Palace with the Bridge of Sighs that yields to the underground prison across the canal:
crossing the bridge on the way to their cell, prisonners got a last view of venice, and Sighed
From there, we went towards the huge Frari Church past the Rialto bridge.
Frari Church
nice house :)
The next morning, we went to another random church and the market by Rialto Bridge, and headed towards the train station to take the full grand canal cruise with a front view:
DHL, delivering day and night :)
It was weird to see streets and cars at the limit of Venice
Once we were at the first Vaporetto station, we ran in to score a couple of front seats to do the grand canal cruise as per the Rick Steve book (and its audiobook we had on our phones):
Rialto Bridge
there are only a few seats in the front of a Vaporetto
Gondolla traffic jam
At the end, we hopped off at a random art museum and the nearby Church
Eisher would be proud :)
Nice view of Piazza San Marco
Once we were back, we took another Ferry to Murano (glass blowing) and Burano (nice colored houses and lace-making). We went to Murano first, and checked out some glass blowing places and a local museum on glass:
how the hell do you get a horse off a blog of glass?
Then, we went to Burano:
And it was time to head back for the main island and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and the great view from its top:
cool 'boat' :)
Doge Palace again
After that, we were pretty much done with what we wanted to see, outside of a Gondola Ride on the todo list. The next and last morning, we went for that, and here are a few random picture:
moving equipment from boats looks interesting...
not so good for the first floor...
high waters that day
almost looks like rush hour :)
And just like this, it was time to move to our next city, Florence. We're lucky because 4 nights in Venice turned out being just right for seeing everything. |