Tuesday we had our first of two full days in Venice. Everyone went exploring early…I walked to San Marco Square, taking lots of photos of canals, boats and shops along the way; Tracey found coffee and croissants in her exploration, and Tim and Susan went for a walk…we met back at our apartment at 10am to walk together to our 11am “hidden secrets” tour at the Doges Palace (Palazzo Ducale). It was an interesting tour despite the fact that I accidentally booked it in Italian! The guide was kind enough to give us a few details in English (he also did English language tours). It was an older group…I think there were only about three people younger than us, but everyone made it up and down the steps even the lady with a cane who was under five feet tall!
The hidden part was the prison cells (including that of Cassanova, under the attic roof, from which he escaped), torture chambers and secretive administrative chambers. Cassanova was the only prisoner (along with Father Marino Balbi) who ever escaped from the terrible prisons in Doge’s Palace.
The Doge’s Palace was established in the 9th century and rebuilt after a fire in the 14th century. It was the residence of the Venetian Doge, and housed governing councils, the Senate, the justice system, and connected directly to the prisons (rebuilt in the 16th century after a fire), via the Bridge of Sighs. It remained the seat of government till the fall of the Republic to Napoleon in 1797 and became a museum in 1923. It’s a beautiful mostly Venetian gothic (with some Renaissance touches in the remodeling) building with gorgeous and elaborate (mostly gothic) ceilings, walls and floors. The largest room is 53 meters long, 23 meters wide and with a very high and elaborately painted ceiling…would make a perfect indoor tennis court.
After leaving the Palace, we headed out to find a spot for lunch and some warmth, it’s been chilly here. We found a restaurant and everyone except me had pizza.. I had pasta with scallops. Everyone was happy with the food. We then divided up. I explored and Tim, Susan and Tracey went back to St Marks Square to see about museum tickets (which it turned out weren’t available so late in the day)…then they walked all over Venice before finding their way home. I wandered around, and into the DaVinci interactive museum, which had scale models of many of his inventions…he was not only the painter of Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, he was a true Renaissance man…interested in anatomy, efficiency in building things, flight and much more. He used a lot of levers, pulleys and screws to move things with less effort.
We plan on going to Murano and Burano the next day and Tim and Tracey got our day passes after some research.