Made it to Venice!

We have made it to Venice!  The train ride from Florence to Venice went without a problem.  After getting in, we got three day “Vaporetti” passes.  These are the water buses and are the way to get around.

This was our first view of the Grand Canal which is the "main street" of Venice.

After checking in and getting great help from the clerk at our hotel, we headed out to explore.  Our first stop was to Piazza San Marco.  This is probably the place most people want to get to when they come to Venice.  The following are several photos of the church and the piazza.

This is looking out from the piazza.

 San Marco Basilica. 

The link is to a video showing a panorama of the piazza from the balcony of the church.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TTLA4cWohw

Gay and I enjoyed our time inside San Marco/St. Mark's.  A striking piece was the overwhelming Byzantine influence.  As the church was built before the Great Schism, east and west were not split.  Indeed, the eastern influence in art would go on in the west for another couple hundred years.  The following photos are from St. Mark's.

This is the main dome.  It shows a classic Byzantine theme of Christ as pantocrator- ruler of the world.

A view of the chancel from the balcony

These horses were cast in the time of Alexander the Great and came to Venice as booty from the Crusade which sacked Christian Constinople.

 

This next link is to a video showing one of the nightly forms of entertainment.  There are a number of combos which play most nights.  I took this video in the late afternoon.  They were still playing when we were back at 9:00 p.m.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UgTk4DuGDI

Here are a few photos from the piazza at night.

It was a fine first day in this storied place.

Blessings!