After spending many hours planning our vacation in Italy, I couldn’t wait for the day to start in Venice. We arrived late in the afternoon knowing that by the time we checked into our hotel we wouldn’t have time to do any real sightseeing. After settling in, we walked around the area and chose a nice little restaurant for dinner. After which we went back to the room and double checked our plans for the next day and then settled in for the rest of the night.

The next morning we started with breakfast at the hotel and hit the road. Since we took a little walk the night before, we knew that the water bus stop was only a couple of blocks from the hotel and it was the only part of the trip planning that I didn’t know much about. The total length of the city of Venice is only about 2 miles and we were heading to St Mark’s square which was a mile away so it didn’t seem far but as we had never been on a water bus, we couldn’t guess. the time it may take to arrive. It turned out that it only took about half an hour to get there, however the ride was quite interesting as the boat zigzagged from one side of the Grand Canal to the other, so it was important to know which side of the canal you wanted to go to.

Once we got to Saint Mark’s square (Piazza San Marco), we walked around a bit, took some photos and decided which of the 3 main places we planned to see first. We decided to climb to the top of the tower in Saint Mark’s square and have a view of the city. At first I thought we were going to have to walk to the top and was surprised to see an elevator up there. The ride only took about a minute, but it seemed longer because there are no windows to look out on the way. Once at the top I realized that we had had a beautifully pristine day and without a speck of mist in the air we could get some great pictures. We took our turns looking at each side of the tower in full view which was spectacular and we took some great photos. I looked closely at my watch to see what time it was because the tower’s huge bells still struck the hour and I, for one, didn’t want to be at the top of the tower when it rang.

After coming down from the tower, the next place to see was St. Mark’s Basilica, which is the most famous of the more than 400 churches on this small island. Entering the church I was a bit surprised by the lack of light, which I thought made it a bit difficult to see the paintings and other art in the church. Another thing that struck me was not being able to bring any personal property to church, I understand there are no cameras, but you can’t bring a backpack either and I don’t recall if a large purse was allowed.

After we finished at church we took some time off from sightseeing to have lunch at a nice place around the corner, a little pricey for me but we were on vacation and planning to go to some expensive places and more. Reasonable places the rest of the time.

The last sight we had planned to see this day was the Doge’s Palace and I suggest anyone going to Venice as a must see. Upon entering the palace, the first thing you notice is the ceilings, all highly ornate with carvings and paintings everywhere. It seemed to me that there must be 50 or more rooms in the palace and each one had a different pattern carved and painted on the ceilings.

Most of the rooms were large over 30 x 30 and some rooms seemed small compared to the rest, but each had paintings or sculptures. There were a few rooms we found particularly interesting one of which was two very large rooms next to each other with a giant 24 hour clock mounted on the common wall so you could see the clock from both rooms each room had at least 120 x 75 ft.

The most impressive room in the palace was a common meeting room which I believe was used as an audience hall and for town meetings. I’ve seen very large rooms before, but this place was immense, at least 250 feet long, 120+ feet wide, and over 60 feet tall, with no center support beams of any kind, the entire ceiling was freestanding. I couldn’t imagine how they could build such a span over 400 years ago without steel.

By the time we finished seeing the Doge’s Palace it was mid-afternoon around 4 so we still had time to see more so we walked to see the Bridge of Sighs, probably the second most famous bridge in Venice. After which we head back to the hotel for a short nap before heading out for dinner.

We were staying in a hotel about 100 feet from Rio Tera San Leonardo, which is one of the main streets in Venice and will take you to the train station after a few street name changes. Being so close to a major street, it was easy to find a good place for dinner, after which we took a nice walk to see our little part of Venice for the night before bed.

From what I’ve read I can’t believe most people only stay in Venice for one day and I recommend anyone planning a visit to Venice to stay at least 3 days, there are too many wonderful things to see to just stay for a day.