Venice, Italy ~ Out and About

You don't have to stay on the main canals to enjoy Venice. In fact, getting out of the tourist areas is where you can find some of the most beautiful sights to see.

 I have a thing about windows, especially windows in old buildings. The actual style is part of it but also how they decorate the windows help to make them beautiful. 

 It is so easy to imagine what these lamps would have looked like at night as true gaslights. It is easy, on most of these converted lights, to see the wires but my favorites try to hide the wires so that, at night, when they are lit, they still look like gaslights.

I simply loved this cat. He was actually chewing on the moss on this window sill and when I said "hey!" he looked up at me with this "Yeah, so I chew on moss...SO?" look. Cracked me up!

 The glamour of Venice is what will sweep you away. The design of the buildings along with the special touches, like the statues at this home, just make it so romantic. 

 Even the more formal buildings even have style to them! I loved this buildings striped awnings which gave a more jaunty look to the formal facade of the structure.

 And the Venetian Lion can be found in nearly every neighborhood. This beautiful church just took my breath away.

 Being a symbol of the fiercely enduring strength of the Venetian people, the lion is on everything from doors to churches to lampposts to bridges. I loved how fierce this one looked!

 Ornate. It is probably the most often used adjectives used when you are in Venice. Beautiful, romantic and ornate. Truly breathtaking everywhere you look.

 As you get closer to the Grand Canal and St. Mark's Square you will notice the bridges filling up with tourists as well as seeing more gondolas filled with people taking a tour of the canals.
                                                                         
 There are so many churches in Venice that you could spend three days just touring them. We saw this one every time we made our way from the hotel to the tourist areas. This meant that the last time I passed this church it was shocking to see that I had missed something major.

 I found out that the skull on the side of this church meant that it has a mausoleum. In other words, it's not just a church but also a graveyard. The skull just struck me as Gothic and dramatic and, in it's own way, one of my favorite details from Venice!

 But the drama of these churches just sweeps you away. If I have the chance to return to Venice it will be for a much longer time just so I can actually tour these churches and enjoy a bit of relaxing time like the guy on these church steps. (click on the small photo to see the larger full version)

This was my favorite and I just knew if I had the opportunity to go inside that it would take my breath away. The San Giorgio Maggiore Church is one of the most photographed churches in Venice...from a distance. This is the church you see from St. Mark's Square across the main waterway. I'm dying to go explore it and the grounds. I can only imagine how wonderful the view of St. Mark's Square would be from that bell tower!

This upcoming week brings an event (I'm an event planner as well as a custom cake designer) so I'll bring you the conclusion of our tour of Venice the following Monday. Hope you can come join us for this last section which includes the Rialto Bridge and Venice at night.

Cat