Yesterday morning we had our Venice tour. Since our tour was on Sunday St. Mark's Basilica was closed for mass so we weren't able to get in to tour it. St. Mark's Square is so crowded. They have 3 or 4 cruise ships a day disgorging 4,000 tourists each. By 2:30 when St. Mark's Basilica opened the line stretched all the way to Padua.We also toured the Doges' Palace where the head dude of Venice lived. Venice was supposedly the birthplace of democracy. The Doges was elected, it was not a position inherited at birth. Nice palace, but we couldn't take pictures.
Just amazing that they could build a city on top of a swamp 1,000 years ago. They just drove trees down into the marsh to create foundations for the buildings, but naturally things sank over time. Pisa is a joke to these Venetians. Pisa only has one leaning tower, but Venice has a dozen or more.
We also toured the Bridge of Sighs named because of the sighs of the prisoners that walked over it to and from the jail. But the jail was permanently closed in 1922. (I hope they took the last prisoners out first!) Now they say the name refers to the sighs of lovers floating under the bridge in their gondolas. Yeah, whatever. Sigh.
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