Venice - Our Anniversary

Our second day in Venice was also our 7th anniversary! We got a semi-early start and I was able to try on some Venetian carnival masks :)

I was partial to the kitty cat one:

On our way to St. Mark's Square:

Me in front of St. Mark's Basilica:

Our first stop was Doge's Palace. The Doge was the duke of Venice and the palace was the house for the Doge and where government business was conducted. This is when you first get inside:

The "Mouth of Truth" - whenever someone had a suspicion or complaint about someone they could accuse them secretly by anonymously (denontie secrete) dropping a slip of paper in the mouth:

The palace is known to look like a "wedding cake" or "the pink house":

The last part of the tour was going over the Bridge of Sighs into the dungeons. This is looking out from the Bridge of Sighs at the water below:

a step back ... this is the real view the prisoner's had before they took their last "sigh" and went into the dungeons:

Michael on the bridge:

The Stairway of Giants (Scala dei Giganti) - the statues are of Neptune and Mars, representing Venice's dominance at sea and at war. The doge never walked down to greet his guests - they always had to walk up. Many of the doges were crowned between these two statues.

Once we were done with the tour we went walking around some more - we went out to the bridge that we took a picture of earlier from the Bridge of Sighs to see it from that angle:

We were just up there :)

After we toured Doge's Palace, we went through St. Mark's Basilica and loved it (no photos allowed in the basilica though)!

St. Mark's Square - the bell tower:

Some of the mosaic on the front of St. Mark's Basilica:

Michael in front of the clock tower:

A closeup of the bronze horses that Napoleon took when he conquered Venice in 1797. When Napoleon's empire fell, the horses were returned to Venice:

After the tours we walked around some more ...

... stopped for a "spritzer" :)

... and some vino :)

then headed out to find a gondolier :)

Our anniversary gondola ride in Venice (**sigh**) :)

enjoying our vino in the gondola:

It was neat going under the bridges:

pictures of some of the dilapidated homes on the water - supposedly Casanova's house was right around here but our gondolier didn't speak English very well :)

out on the Grand Canal - heading towards the Rialto Bridge:

going under the bridge:

The different colors of poles represented the different homes' gondola ports:

The Grand Canal:

getting off and heading to dinner:

the gondolier's shack -

Me on the Rialto Bridge before we went to our anniversary dinner :)