St Mark's Square

This is St Mark's Basilica, perhaps the premier building in Venice. This photo was taken at dusk, as we were coming off our vaporetta after island hopping. Tonight we have a private tour of St Mark's Basilica, so that will be very special. It starts at 9pm - so in about 3 hours.

This morning we had a two hour tour of the Doge's Palace, that ended exactly at two hours, at the exit. The lovely Fiona - a walking text book - must have done this tour before. There were lots of detail about the meaning of images and colours etc in dozens of paintings. Venice always a woman, usually with a lion at her feet. I'll post some. Nudity warning for children.

The first Doge was appointed about 600 AD, and the democratic Republic of Venice continued unbroken until 1797, when Napoleon 'conquered' Venice. The Doge surrendered without a shot being fired, very sensible I think. The French stole some stone lions but left all the architecture and art works intact. It became a French district. Doges were always old men, who were elected from a process as delicate as the election of a Pope. This was to prevent them becoming too powerful, although they were Doge for life. Only men of the 'noble families' were allowed to have their name (on a ball) go into a big urn. Then a young boy selected 30 balls, so it was initially random set of names. A series of elections then took place. There have been 122 Doges.

Similarly, judges were elected, as well as all the major roles in the administration. There was a built in turn over of families so that no family became too powerful, too 'imperial'. After Napoleon died, Venice became an Austrian territory, before joining the Unification of Italy in 1861-1871.

Unlike 2012 we were now not allowed to walk up the special staircase of the Doge. But I'd say it was otherwise pretty similar. It helps to have a living guide, rather than merely read the information boards in each room.

After lunch (I had lasagne) we spent the afternoon in the Archaeological Museum of Venice. Lots of old stuff, maps, models of boats etc. We were kept out of the most important section of the museum. This was where the Mappa Mundi or World Map of the 1350s was kept. Some fancy pancy jewellery company was filming their Venice Biennale advertisement in there. We finally got to see it, and it was the 'other' Mappa Mundi. The one that came to Canberra was from Vatican City. Still awesome.

Pictures coming when they download from icloud.