New Picture Gallery Added...Italy...
The only "must see" sight that was left was the prime goal for this morning...St. Mark's Basilica. It was built in the 11th century ro replace an earlier church. Built in Eastern Byzantine style, which is the reason it looked to familiar to us as we walked in. It has some of the same characteristics of a Muslem Mosque and Christian Church built as one. In 830AD, the bones of St. Mark were moved to this site and are still interned here. The whole church is covered with some 43,000 square feet of Byzantine mosaic tiles. Now, these tiles are small, I mean SMALL... The pictures that they have made with these tiles are unbelieveable. No wonder the lines are so long to get in to see them... What a masterpiece this whole building is. It kind of glows gold...a little dirty now, but still gold. Where they have used the tiles to make a figure, they have even sculptured the base material so that the tiles are given a shape of say, the face. The different shades, shapes, and sizes of the tiles all to make a small...eye for example...incredible !!! 43,000 square feet of mosaic tiles... incredible !!! Now also in this basilica, is a large "booty". This was brought in by sea captains that were on long voyages, from their "trophy chests". After reaching the galleria, we found the well traveled bronze horses that were made in the days of Alexander the Great (4th Century BC). They were once in Rome when Nero was there, and then went to Constantinople with Constantine, to Venice with the Crusaders, to Paris by Napoleon and then back to Venice for good when Nepoleon fell. Speaking of falling...lunch time...it kind of sounds like we eat all the time doesn't it? Ya, I know...I think we do sometimes. Well, we did it, we hit all the "Big" sites, and a lot of the small ones too. One that we hadn't given much thought of seeing, was the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, but off we went. It was a collection of 20th century popular art. The building was one of her personal homes, and right on the Grand Canal. The art, well, it was interesting...the house...Frank Lloyd Wright, but with a touch of Venice Italian, and fantastic. It's been a full 3 days and 3 nights of none stop Venice, and it has come to an end...That's all folks...Tomorrow...onto Firenze (Florence)