Our Blog - Venice Page 2
This equestrian statue is of Bartolomeo Colleoni, a mercenary who served Venice in the 1400's. The statue is famous for having been made by Verrocchio who counted Leonardo Da Vinci.
A view of one of the smaller canals from on of the over 100 bridges in Venice. This is typical of the Venice architecture, the brightly colored buildings that are normally a little worse for wear.
We spent some time inside the Doge Palace on Saturday. One interesting relic is the figure pictured here. When citizens wished to make an anonymous written complaint, they could insert it in the mouth of the man pictured here.
As you would expect of a palace the inside can be a bit over the top. As we walked up one of the staircases we noticed the ceiling above had some rather elaborate decorations.
There is a relatively small courtyard inside the palace, but in the background you can see the Basilica from a different perspective.
Connecting the Doge Palace to a prison was a bridge, called the "Bridge of Sighs". The picture here is from the inside of the bridge looking outside to a larger bridge and in the background a smaller island.
The "Bridge of Sighs" is shown again, this time from the outside, but with the addition of Susan with her stylish new sunglasses.
In order for the gondoliers to make it under the bridges during high tide they need to tilt the gondola. Here is an example of the gondolier doing the tilt.
The next five pictures are from the top of the bell tower with different views of the city of Venice. You can see both the Piazza, some of the smaller islands as well as the red roofed buildings throughout the city.
As you would expect of a bell tower at the top of the building there are five large bells.
Capturing fresh water was of extreme importance in Venice during the past. As a result you will find old cisterns spread throughout the city that would be used to catch and dispense water.
As we walked through the city one of the days we looked up to notice a leaning tower. It was not the famous clock tower, but we found it odd it was not mentioned in any of the guidebooks but yet it looked not unlike the leaning tower of Pisa.
All throughout San Marco's Piazza are pigeons looking for meals. We decided to fork over the 1 euro for food to have Tom get abused by his pigeon friends.
Every night the Piazza would fill up with people, some just wandering around while others would sit outside cafe's and listen to the music.