Another full day in Venice, April 26, Part One

We had another day on our vaporetto pass, so we headed out early to St Mark's Square and got in line to get into San Marco Basilica, which is quite Byzantine, full of mosaics and icons.  All over this city are St Mark's lions, holding the Bible.  St Mark is supposedly buried here, having been stolen from
Alexandria in 828.  The floor of the basilica is absolutely beautiful mosaics...and, toads to the whole effect, it undulates.  The most revered icon in the church is the 10th century Madonna of Nicopeia, which used to accompany the army of Constantinople, but was stolen by the Venetians in 1204.  It is only about 15 x 12 inches big.  We sat in "her" little chapel for a while.We did not go into the Doge's Palace,

having been to enough museums for a while, but did go around to look at the Bridge of Sighs, supposedly named for the sighs prisoners made when they passed from sentencing into the prison, but the truth is that they have been more likely to have been sighs of relief as those condemned to die or serve long sentences would have gone to the subterranean cells or the sweltering cells under the roof.

The bell tower is the tallest building in Venice and very impressive.  Amazingly, it collapsed in 1902 and was rebuilt. The other bell tower in the square is also impressive with two "wild men" hitting the bell every hour since 1506.

Enough of monuments...we took yet another vaporetto, this time down the other major canal, between
Guidecca and Venice, past where the cruise ships dock, the bus station and the train station, all the way back to Rialto, where we hopped out a d miraculously found the tiny streets and tiny little bars where he recommended eating chicheti, which are Venice's version of tapas.  We ate at 2 different ones...yummy.