Venice, City in Lagoon

The uniqueness of Venice is best appreciated from the sky above. Venice is a series of over a hundred islands spread out in shallow lagoon separated by canals and waterways. From above, all the red clay roofed buildings appear like tiny squares on fully filled up checkerboard. Literally, every inch of the land above the lagoon waterline is fully built up with very minimal sign of vegetation in green.

People do not just come for their canals, gondolas, bridges, chocolates and granita. The islands have plenty of awesome architectures and engineering marvels to behold.

Because of limited time, we chose to visit St. Mark Square or Piazza San Marco (in Italian) only. As we got off from the waterbus upon reaching the jetty next to this iconic attraction, we could feel an immediate sense of awe because of the huge square in front of us. This huge square is a far cry from the many narrow alleyways where we had to jostle and contend with the the huge tourist crowds.

St. Mark's Basilica is the one of the most famous Venice's churches. The front which faces west depicts the best example of Italo-Byzantine architecture. In front of the Basilica is the huge square called the Piazza, the only square which is called as such. It is trapezoidal in shape (176m in length and a width of 82m tapering to 62m), almost the size of 2.5 football fields!

Main entrance to St. Mark's Basilica.

Colonnade leading to St. Mark's Basilica.

We would have missed our train back to Florence had we
joined the queue to see the interior of the Basilica.

 St. Mark's Campanile or the Clock Tower.

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Like any of the European countries once under the Byzantine Empire, there is just no shortage of cathedrals and church buildings in Venice. We stopped to see this fairly magnificent old church building - Church of San Geremia and Lucia tucked in between almost equally embellished old buildings. As we gazed at these man-made structures, we marveled at their ornate architecture and at the same time bemused by the decline of the impact it once had!