A very quick train from Bologna and I’m now in one if Italy’s, if not the world’s, most famous cities, the beautiful and enchanting Venice. When the Roman towns along the Adriatic coast were overrun by barbarians in the 5th century, the people ended up settling in these wetlands. In the early 8th century the first doge was elected and Venice slowly grew in power and size. Today, Venice is an unbelievably beautiful city, a tourist Mecca, comprised of 118 tiny islands, about 400 bridges, and possibly one of the most unique public transport systems in the world.

Walking around Venice can get confusing to say the least. There are no cars in Venice, but boats of all sorts move around the canals between the islands. You walk the pedestrian streets that twist and turn in all directions and cross one of the city’s charming bridges when needed, unless you take a wrong turn and end up at the end of a street with only water ahead. Then it’s time to consult the map and figure out where you went wrong. And don’t forget to stop and take pictures at every bridge crossing, it’s in the rule book, look it up.

You’re going to see lots of bridge crossing pics in this post. Something about all that water and boats cruising around is just captivating. But one thing Venice is very famous for is art. While the rest of the world was painting ordinary religious art, Venetian artists like Tintoretto, Titian, Canova, Canaletto, Veronese, and many others were taking it to a whole other level. I got a big taste of it at the Gallerie dell’Accademia. It was actually founded by Napolean in 1807 when he needed a place to store all of his stolen artwork.

Snaking in a giant S right through the middle of Venice runs the Grand Canal. There are only three bridges that cross it, otherwise you’re taking a boat. Right outside the Gallerie dell’Accademia is one of those, the Ponte dell’Accademia. All of them give some pretty amazing views.

Not that the smaller canal views are any less amazing though.

Not far from the Gallerie dell’Accademia is the collection of one of Venice’s more famous residents, Peggy Guggenheim. I’m not a modern art fan. I think most of it is pretentious nonsense, but the stuff I like, I REALLY like! Which means I’m powerless to resist the opportunity to see a Jackson Pollack in the wild. And they had four of them. Two were from his early period which I wasn’t wild about, but the two pictured below were worth the admission price in my opinion.

In addition to the artwork, the view from the terrace wasn’t bad at all.

Sometimes in all my walking about I stumble upon random cool stuff that doesn’t show up in my research and that few people even know about. This time it was Chiesa di San Barnaba. But this church had been converted into a Leonardo Davinci museum. Someone, or perhaps several someones, took a bunch of Davinci’s drawings of a bunch of his wacky ideas and built them for real based entirely on his schematics. Wacky ideas like gear shafts, ball bearings, pulleys, water corkscrews, parachutes, flying machines, even what is believed to be the first bicycle! You know, wacky things that are a part of our every day life today.

It’s not a trip to Venice unless you take some sort of boat ride. The gondolas are way expensive (€80 for 30 minutes) and too slow for me. Always the prolific user of public transport, though, I bought a day pass for Venice’s public bus, I mean boat, and boat hopped around the city for the day. The best part was just taking a long cruise from one end of the Grand Canal to the other.

Something I also didn’t consider before coming here is that without any wheeled vehicles of any kind allowed or even practical, everything is done by boat. That means taxis, buses, police, ambulances, and even garbage trucks are all boats here. For example, a garbage boat got in my pic of Accademia Bridge below.

I’m sure every palazzo in Venice has some kind of interesting history. I wish I had time to learn more about some of them. One interesting one I read about before coming here, though, is Palazzo Dario. Built in 1479, this palazzo has spent the last more than 500 years killing and/or bankrupting every poor soul who’s ever owned or rented it. No kidding, there’s a list of dozens and dozens of victims associated with this place! I assume it’s now vacant and for sale, but I’m not sure. Ha!

I’m skipping around a bit here, but we’ll get back to my day of boat hopping further down. First let’s talk about the epicenter of Venice, Piazza San Marco where Venice’s main cathedral resides. This place was pretty much a zoo where all the tourists congregated. I had to be clever and flexible about seeing everything as I underestimated the amount of people that would be here. The first time I walked out into the Piazza, I was a bit overwhelmed and just kind of stumbled around snapping pictures not knowing where to start.

On one side, the beautiful 15th century Clock Tower which apparently also tracks lunar cycles. The bell at the top gets rung by two bronze Moors with no pants. Why? I have no idea. On the other side is the Campanile, the cathedral’s bell tower which for some reason is not attached to it, but across the Piazza from it. It was originally built in the 9th century, but it’s had to be replaced a couple of times. It’s probably most famous as the place where Galileo tested out his new telescope in 1609. Cool!

And then there’s the Basilica di San Marco. I can’t think of an adjective good enough to describe it. It was originally built in the 9th century to house the remains of St Mark after they smuggled his body out of Egypt in a barrel of pork fat (yes, really). It’s covered inside and out in golden mosaics, some 8,000 square feet worth, some dating back to the 12th century, as well as more marble statuary than any one human can regard in a lifetime. Just look at all those people! The line to get into the basilica was ridiculously long so I started with the other sites. First, an elevator ride to the top of the Campanile which was added much much later than the 9th century.

The views from the top were just incredible! All of Venice in one giant 360° view. Awesome!

Also in the Piazza is the Palazzo Ducale, where Venetian Doges ruled their empire. The Palace is connected to the ancient prisons by the famous Bridge of Sighs, so called because prisoners were said to have sighed while looking out at the city while being transferred from the courts in the palace to the prison on the other side.

Take what you would expect the Venetian Palace to look like inside and multiply it many times over. It’s beautiful, elaborate, and opulent. Intricate carved wood and marble all around and the walls and ceilings are covered by paintings by some of the best Venetian artists of the time. My neck was so sore after leaving this place. I don’t recall ever being so thoroughly saturated by a museum as the Palazzo Ducale.

The paintings throughout the palace tend to be less about religious themes and more about propaganda. Most are just extolling the virtues and superiority of Venice, represented by a blonde woman. For example, in the pic below, all the classical gods swirl around the crowned Venice at the top.

Below is Venice telling Justice and Peace what’s what while Jesus supervises.

More propaganda. In the famous Il Paradiso by Tintoretto, the 500 or so souls in heaven are all prominent Venetians of the time. Venetian elites sure knew how to inflate their own egos.

Part of the reason I was so saturated after exploring the Palazzo Ducale was because right before, I explored the Museo Correr, also on Piazza San Marco. It was also a large museum of art, archeology, and history. As tired as I was and as damaged as my neck was from looking up for almost an entire day, I did enjoy the hell out of all of it.

I managed to see everything on Piazza San Marco that day except the cathedral itself. That line was too long and when I went back later in the day thinking that the line would be shorter, it was after closing time. No worries though, I made it back a couple of days later. And as always, between site seeing and eating are the endless canals and bridges to enjoy.

Perhaps one of the more unique views of Venice I got was from the terrace of T Fondaco dei Tedeschi, which is just a four story shopping mall. With an online reservation they let you up on the terrace for free for fifteen minutes. Trying to make sure I got here on time was not easy. I managed to make it though with enough time to eat lunch right next to Rialto Bridge. The terrace was just on the other side.

A few of the Palazzo’s in Venice are open to the public and are being used as museums of different sorts. The Palazzo Grimani was built in 1568 to showcase the Grimani family’s large collection of ancient artifacts, some of which are now in Museo Correr. The rest are here in the Palazzo’s antiquarium. I wish I had a room like this in my house.

This was also the day I did the most walking. After Palazzo Grimani, I walked all the way out to the Venetian Arsenale, a massive complex of shipyards begun in the 12th century. Today it’s used by the Italian military. This is only the entrance to the Arsenale, the only part you’re allowed to see. The complex is so huge apparently, that it accounts for about 15% of all of Venice.

Guarding the Arsenale is the 9ft tall Piraeus Lion. It was carved in the 4th century BC and guarded Athens harbor in Greece for about two thousand years until 1687, when it was looted by the Venetians after one of the Ottoman wars and placed here. Over three hundred years later it’s still here.

Chiesa di San Zaccaria has probably the most artwork in quality and quantity than any church I’ve seen. It was all donated by wealthy and grateful Venetian parents. It seems when their daughters were naughty they got sent to the adjoining convent to get straightened out. So all these paintings by Venice’s most famous artists are just thank you presents.

On the long walk back through Venice to get dinner and some well deserved sleep, I stopped at a few other quick sites that made for some cool photos. In the pic below the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo is on the right. That ornate marble building on the left is a hospital. Even the hospitals look like churches here apparently.

Below on the left, the spiral staircase was built attached to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo as a bit of malicious compliance when the owner was told it was illegal for him to build his own tower. And below right is Venice’s narrowest street. It just dead ends at the water, but there it is.

I’m learning most towns in Italy have a leaning tower of some kind. The tower at Chiesa di Santo Stefano is definitely leaning. Supposedly it’s been leaning like that since the 14th century, though, so I guess it’s fine.

I almost missed seeing the Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari because it was closed the first time I passed by it. Normally I don’t feel too bad if I miss seeing a church due to closure, but I’m glad I tried again because I Frari, as it’s known, was really beautiful. Two famous Venetian painters are buried here, Canova and Titian, and there are some works by Titian decorating the walls.

Both paintings below are by Titian. The one on the left, Assunta, is considered by most experts, including Canova, to be the finest example of renaissance art ever painted. Wow!

Back to my day of boat hopping. During the second half of that day I ventured out to a couple of the islands further out. The best was Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore. I took some pics of it (seen above) from the Campanile a couple of days earlier. This time I got to take pics of St Marks Sq from the bell tower of Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore. There were also a couple of impressive Tintoretto paintings inside the church.

From Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore I got back on the boat, crossed over to St Marks Sq, sucked it up and got in line to see Basilica di San Marco. The line wasn’t as long this time and luckily, I only had to wait about thirty minutes. The mosaics outside the basilica are really impressive, but the inside pretty much blew me away. As I mentioned earlier, there are roughly 8,000 square feet of mosaic in that church.

Back behind the main alter is the simple sarcophagus of St Mark and the Pala d’Oro, a giant 13th century alter piece made of gold and every kind of precious gem you can think of. It’s dazzling! So dazzling, in fact, that everyone forgets to even look at St Marks sarcophagus, including me.

The entire floor of St Marks Basilica is mosaic as well, though it’s near impossible to get pictures because of the amount of people inside. I had to be patient and wait for the right moments, but I managed to get a few.

Upstairs in the museum are some pieces that were either removed or fell and were replaced by other mosaics over the centuries. Also, the original four horses that used to be on the front of the basilica (there are replicas out there now). They were originally looted from Constantinople and even lived in Paris for a while when Napoleon took them for himself. Obviously, they made it back to Venice eventually, though.

They also let you walk out onto the terrace on top of the basilica for some great views of St Marks Sq.

My final day I first wandered far from the crowds to the northern part of Venice. It was like a whole other world, quiet and sedate. While walking around all the canals and empty streets I stopped by the house of the famous Venetian painter, Tintoretto, and Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto, which was his parish church and where he’s buried.

Given that it was his parish and that his tomb is inside, there are of course a lot of Tintoretto’s paintings inside. In fact, except for the two paintings in the center, the whole alter is his work.

His work just seems more life like than any other painter I’ve seen. Really amazing! Anyway, Tintoretto’s extremely simple tomb is just to the right of the alter.

My final stop was to check out another of Venice’s palazzos that’s open to the public, the 15th century Ca d’Oro. Baron Giorgio Franchetti bought the place in the very early 20th century and set about restoring and fixing it up. Today it houses some of his collection of ancient art, but the best part of the palazzo was the mosaic covered lower courtyard.

The entire courtyard is done up in astonishing mosaic work. Baron Franchetti was very much a mosaic enthusiast. This guy traveled all over the world, searching for and acquiring just the right pieces of marble, the rarer and more unique the better. Then he cut the marble pieces, designed and laid this amazing floor, all himself. It was his masterpiece and he was so proud of it that his ashes are now interred here, under a small red marble marker. I like this guy!

While the floor of the lower courtyard was the highlight, the view from the upper terrace was pretty incredible too.

Most people only spend a couple of days in Venice. I was here for five full days and I’m exhausted from running around trying to see it all! It’s an amazing and almost magical place, I get it. That’s also it’s downfall however. The amount of people here can be frustrating to put it mildly, and it’s still only the off season! I can’t imagine being here in the summer. No thanks! Something else I noticed is that the food is more tourist oriented, more expensive and less tasty. Those endless canals and bridges though!

Venice wins two awards for this trip. First, it’s the most expensive stop on this trip. Second, I took more pictures here than any other stop on this trip. Now it’s time to move on, though. There’s more of Italy waiting for me out there…