VENICE

Grand Canal

Side "street" of venice. Beautiful little canals.

A Gondola on a side canal.

View of Grand Canal from the famous Rialto Bridge. One of only three bridges that cross the Grand Canal in the entire city.

Beth on Rialto Bridge

View of Rialto Bridge from Grand Canal sidewalk

The Bridge of Sighs, connects Dodge's Palace to the palace prisons

View of St. Mark's Square early morning from the Bell Tower

View of Venice from the Bell Tower. The main land is off in the distance. You see can only road and tracks leading to Venice At the end of that road is the Train Station. In the upper right of photo. There are no cars allowed in the city, we never even saw bicycles.

View from Bell tower of lagoon formed by a thin strip of land
that protects Venice from the Adriatic Sea.

View of Dodge's Palace which is right off St. Marks Square. Very ornate inside. We took a secret itineraries tour where we toured the "secret passages" and "torture chambers" of the palace where they took extra special prisoners.

St. Marks Square, early morning.

Saint Mark's Cathedral from other side of the square.

View of Saint Mark's Dome from Grand Canal Cruise

When we got out of the Dodge's Palace tour at 11:00 am we came out to a completely flooded Saint Mark's Square. Apparently this is normal, they have temporary sidewalks they erect for just such an occasion. The pigeons all huddles in droves on dry places, people are jammed onto these "sidewalks" and on the "higher ground". The water just kept rising and rising right out of the drains in the square. Some crazy people actually walked in the water...not sure about that.

Balcony of St. Mark's Cathedral, overlooks the square. Correre Museum on the left and straight ahead. Huge museum! See all the water in the square.