Today we went to Venice. The high speed train took 1.5 hours; when we got there we were right on the ocean and it seemed like the train was about to fall in the ocean. We got off the train and headed toward the water taxis. We wanted to take a trip up the Grand Canal but my Dad got confused and we ended up going out through the ocean in order to get to the San Marco Basilica. On the way, we passed some giant ocean liners that could have held the entire population of Venice, with room to spare. Once we arrived at San Marco Basilica, we took an elevator up 300 feet to get a nice view of Venice. We came down and then headed to the Basilica and went inside. The Basilica was like a giant church and it was dedicated to Saint Marco (I think). There were some statues of people who I didn’t recognize; it also had a lot of beautiful mosaics – pieces of stone glued together to look like a painting. When you got close to the mosaic, you could realize that there were a lot of spaces in between the colored pieces of stone.
Once we were done in San Marco Basilica, we went to the second level where we saw the museum of captured treasures. There were a lot of wrecked paintings and rough statues, and there were the original Byzantine horses (from Constantinople) and the copies are standing on top of San Marco Basilica.
Following the museum visit, we went for a gondola ride around Venice. The gondolas are weirdly shaped so that they could be paddled from only one side without the paddler having to switch sides and the boat would still go straight. After the ride, it was late so we took a water taxi down the Grand Canal and then took a local train back to Bologna (2 hours).
There is a little competition on the canals.....
Venice at night is very pretty.....
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