St. Marks square during a thunder storm, and after

After my morning trip to Burano I decided to find my way back to St. Mark's Square ( the centre of Venice for a thousand years ) and try and get some decent photos ( the last time I was there it rained heavily). Well guess what, it does that a lot around here. I only just got there and the heavens opened up, which meant that the hundreds of people that are normally on the square, were all squeezed in under the portico's of the buildings surrounding the square. After a beautiful sunny morning this time of year they have afternoon and evening thunderstorms, which can take five minutes or two hours to pass over. The street vendors love it, cos they have boxes of plastic raincoats and umbrellas ready to pull out as soon as the rain starts. There are some stunning buildings on St. Mark's square. The flashiest is the Basilica which was built to house the bones of St Mark, which the Venetians stole from Alexandria in 828 AD. The outside is amazing and the inside is covered from floor to high ceiling in gold paint and mosaic pictures. It is very dark in there and absolutely no photos allowed, but I wasn't as impressed with the inside as I was with the outside. The other stunning building is the Doge's palace, built in the 14th and 15th centuries. These two building plus the belltower with 500 wooden steps you can climb up inside ( If you feel like giving yourself a hernia) to take photos from the top, are the most impressive and iconic sights of Venice and have been so for hundreds of years. The famous Cafe Florian is a crazy place which has a cheesy jazz band playing on the forecourt every evening. Everyone in the square can see and hear them, but if you sit down at a table in front of the cafe and pay ridiculous inflated prices for a drink or a snack you also get charged a fee for the music added to your bill. However there is only one Cafe Florian which has been in St Mark's square for 300 years, and some people have too much money to spend on indulgences.. Since it was my last afternoon in Venice I also decided to head up the Grand Canal on a vaporetto (water bus) and take what photos I could.... So this is really my goodbye Venice blog... Next stop Bologna.

rain cleared the square

it began as a shower

started to get a bit windy and wet

schoolkids were staunch about getting wet

running from the other side to join their friends

once you're wet you're wet

the rain is really heavy

at the height of the thunder & lightening

The bell tower from the Doge's palace

front of basilica

1000 year old bronze horses

front of basilica again

top of basilica

above Basilica

more detail around basilica doors

entry to Doge's palace

doge's palace square view

doge's palace canal view

from the belltower as the sky cleared

the bridge of sighs from palace to prison

Cafe Florian opened 1720

$25 each for cup of tea + $10 each music charge

1497 clock tells time, moon, zodiac...

500 year old bell struck every hour by two figures

leaving St Mark's square

heading up the grand canal

on the grand canal in a gondola

gondolas queueing to enter side canal

heading further up the canal

pulling in to water bus stop

beautiful grand canal hotels

and more

and more

and more

and private residences

originally all palaces

rounding a bend

some showing signs of wear and tear

It's a busy highway

rare to see greenery

on such expensive land

only wooden bridge crossing grand canal

restored palaces used as museums

or hotels

or private homes to the very wealthy

canal lined with homes hundreds of years old

restaurants tend to maintain buildings

come in all shapes and sizes

and colours

like these

and these

up by the Rialto bridge markets

coming up to Rialto bridge

heading under Rialto bridge built 1591

view from wooden bridge on another day

heading down the canal from bridge

view of gondola from bridge