Venice Day 3

We decided to get an early start to our last full day in Venice, and got up to watch the sunrise. It was pretty neat to be in San Marco (Saint Mark's Square) with only a few other individuals there - any other time of day it's packed full! The light was pretty spectacular - we were lucky and had unseasonably great weather for our entire trip.

Bridge of Sighs - the only time we saw it without a horde of people on the bridge stopping to take selfies in front of it

Saint Mark's emblem, the winged lion, is the symbol of the city of Venice, and you could see it everywhere!

I think the artist for this banner has watched too much Lion King

Venice's flag (usually flown beside Italy's flag and that of the European Union) - the tails are for the different districts of Venice.

Another Venician flag - not sure why they are different! We saw this one more rarely so I suspect it's unofficial

 We spent some time in the cathedral and Saint Mark's Square:

Saint Mark's basillica - so much gold leaf! Kind of underwhelming actually, compared to some of the other cathedrals we've seen. First built around 1073, it's gone through a lot between fires and frequent flooding. 

 

 

 

 

Usual population of Saint Mark's square

I do NOT want to pose with pigeons on me! Yuck!

Walking around window shopping was really fun too! Can't decide what I liked looking at more, the food or the beautiful glasswork and other crafts.

Yummy cannolis!

Gelato shops around every corner!

Just for my sister.

Beautiful masks found everywhere

These sculptures were crazily good

Not the real Vitruvean Man (apparently almost always hidden away instead of on display, disappointingly), but a replica at a Da Vinci exhibit

Children of the 80's and 90's, name this book series!

 Most of our day was just spent exploring by vaporetto and foot. Our passes got us one more trip across the island -  since they are 24 hour passes, we were still good the next morning (although there was a bit of anxiety as they actually expired about 8 minutes before we got to our destination - if a transit officer boarded and checked passes, we would have been fined, as it doesn't matter that we boarded while our passes were still valid). The water buses are seriously crowded:

This is the hotel where George Clooney got married (or so we were told, and far too lazy to fact-check)

Playing with my new 50mm fixed focal length lens

Great stand-up meal at a local cafe - with some prosecco and Spritz (local drink) to wash down several delicious mini sandwiches!

Justin finding more ancestors (or so he claims)

Great chocolate store!

After some final tourist-ing, we headed back across the island, caught the train to Treviso (almost missed it, actually - that was not fun!) and had a great dinner at a little restaurant on the way to our hotel. The next morning we had an awesome buffet breakfast and caught a flight back home. I'll let you guess which pictures were in Italy and which were in England:

Actually, that's too depressing an image to end such a great weekend on, so I'll find another. Here's one of a gondola's 'hood ornament' that I really liked.

Best fifth anniversary ever!