Venice – Piazza San Marco and around

Piazza San Marco is the heart of Venice and contains three of its most treasured and well-known sites. The Basilica di San Marco, Palazzo Ducale and the Campanile Bell Tower.

Before I take you down there for a look around a few photos from our neighbourhood in Venice. A sunrise view from the waterfront a hundred yards from the front door

The street where we lived

The view from the balcony

And over the rooftops to the massive Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo on the left

Our first day in Venice was very much a Piazza San Marco day. We spent the morning on a tour of the Palazzo Ducale (on the left here). More on that in the next post

And this is the magnificent Basilica di San Marco. It’s a stunningly ornate and beautiful work and one of Venice’s treasured buildings.

It’s free to visit and we paid a couple of Euros each to skip the line. You aren’t supposed to take photos so we dutifully didn’t although everyone else was. Trust me when I say its astonishing inside. A picture or two from the Interweb to give you a feel

The amazing golden look is created by using gold leaf on thousands of tiny mosaic tiles behind a layer of fired glass. This creates the shimmering effect. It’s absolutely extraordinary and even though it only takes 10-15 mins to walk around its worth a few Euros to beat the queue or just to wait in it

In between our visit to the Palazzo Ducale and the Basilica we returned home for lunch. We took a circuitous route to take in some typical Venetian streets, canals and squares

It’s the middle part of the day and this image proves that you don’t have to wander far or try to hard in Venice to lose the crowds. Alas I have no idea which lovely square this was

A leisurely lunch on the patio was always welcome and enjoyable

We went back for our Basilica visit and to climb the Campanile Bell Tower which again I’ll cover in a future post

This is still peak time and you can tell that even though there are loads of people the square is big enough to cope without feeling too oppressive (it’s the streets leading to it from the Rialto that are really crowded). The square is surrounded by up-market coffee houses with orchestras playing music. I was tempted to sit down and enjoy a break till I saw how much they wanted for a beer.

We decided to wait for our time slot to climb the tower by the waterfront near the gondolas. No beer or music but it was free

We went back to the square many times such was its draw. Early evening was perfect as the crowds thinned and the sun bathed the buildings in golden light that seemed appropriate somehow

On our first evening visit we arrived a bit late and the Basilica was half in shadow although it still looked inspiring

Again we took in the view from the waterfront. I think this view across to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and its church was my favourite in Venice

Closely followed by the view from the same spot to the eye-catching Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

I paid a visit early one morning on a very long walk and boat ride to pick up the breakfast pastries. It was quite startling to see it with no one there

The Torre dell’Orologio with its mechanical men that chime the bell

This photo shows really well just how quiet it was

I enjoyed this shot, standing in the shadow of the bell tower

With the inevitable pigeon in shot

A morning view of the Basilica

And the Palazzo Ducale

We came back on our last night to try to catch the light better. Still not quite early enough to avoid a shadow on the Basilica alas.

But the light was still amazing

The Palazzo Ducale

And a final close up of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore

And the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

I was expecting to find the Piazza overcrowded and spoilt. But even with the crowds you can really appreciate its splendour and charm and I fell in love with it and its surrounds and water front views (as you can tell from the many visits and photos). Make the effort to come late or early and its even better. Only occurs to me now that we never saw it at night. I shall have to go back then