Venice – Four Visits, Three Hotels

“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.” – Alexander Herzen

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Entrance Tickets – Venice Museums

Next door in the Piazzetta is the Doge’s Palace with Gothic arcades at ground level and an elaborate loggia on the floor above and a long queue of people waiting for their turn at the ticket office.

We joined this and enjoyed the sun as the queue moved slowly past and around the street vendors and the ladies selling bags of grain for feeding the birds.  The Palace is a museum now and we took the route through the rooms where great works of art were displayed and then crossed the Bridge of Sighs to reach the old Palace prisons on the other side of a canal.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Venice – A City of Reflections

The name is derived from the ancient tribe of Veneti that inhabited the region in Roman times. The city historically was the capital of a powerful and successful sea-born independent city-state. Venice has been known as the “La Dominante”, “Serenissima”, “Queen of the Adriatic”, “City of Water”, “City of Masks”, “City of Bridges”, “The Floating City” and “City of Canals”.  It stretches across one hundred and seventeen small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea and the salt water lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po (south) and the Piave (north) Rivers.

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Venice, San Marco, Tourists, Reflections, Floods and Pigeons

“Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.”
Henry James

From the Rialto we took as direct a path as we could determine in the direction of St Mark’s Square, a route which took us through more twisting alleyways and distracting shopping streets that were become incrementally more expensive as we got closer to the famous piazza and then suddenly we were out of the tangled web of alleys and joined thousands of others in admiration of the unmistakable square.

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Venice, Piazzas, Palazzos and Padlocks

“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.”  –  Alexander Herzen

The Hotel Grand Italia provided a splendid breakfast and after we had had several plates of excellent food we gathered together at the reception desk and when we were all accounted for we made our way to the railway station.

Padova Stazione is one of those grand public buildings that are a legacy of the fascist era in Italy and Mussolini’s principal architect Angiolo Mazzoni Del Grande.  His public buildings are iconic features of twentieth century Italy and they have an impressive functional design and layout that makes them a pleasing monument to an otherwise unpleasant era of Italian and European history.

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Venice, Piazza San Marco

“Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.”
Henry James

Napoleon may or may not have called the Piazza San Marco “the finest drawing room in Europe” but whether he did or he didn’t it doesn’t really matter because it is indeed one of the finest squares in all of Europe.

San Marco or is the principal public square of Venice where it is generally known just as ‘the Piazza’.  All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta) are called ‘campi’ (fields).  The Piazzetta (the ‘little Piazza’) is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner and the two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of the city.

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Venice, Three Visits, Three Hotels

“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.”                                                                                                                                 Alexander Herzen

I first visited Venice in April 2002 and stayed at the Albergo San Marco near Saint Marks Square. There was perfect spring weather and I was captivated by the sights and sounds of the city which seemed to belong more correctly to a theme park than a thriving industrial sea port city. We did the sights of course, the Cathedral, Doge’s Palace, Rialto Bridge and the labyrinth of canals lined with palaces and museums. Wrapped up in the atmosphere of the place we paid £30 for a drink and a sandwich in St Mark’s Square and £80 for a ride in a gondola.  

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