Venice:City of the Grand Canal, beautiful Bridges,Gondola rides,Carnival Celibrations,Churches,historical museums & the world famous Murano’s Glass souvenirs.

On the 8th of Sept’2022 evening , We reached Venice,Italy on our 3-day visit of the main attractions of this beautiful destination !Known as the ‘City of Canals’ there are many things Venice is famous for including its beautiful bridges, gondola rides, atmospheric streets and carnival celebrations. Built over 118 islands, Venice and its lagoon is one of the most unique cities in the world. One of the things Venice is famous for is its Carnival celebrations, which take place about three weeks before Ash Wednesday and Lent. Masks are an emblem of the Venetian Carnival. Back in the day, masks protected your identity and social status, meaning people from different social standings could socialise with each other without being judged. Venice is known for its labyrinth of narrow streets, laneways and alleys. Getting lost in the city’s maze-like streets is a rite of passage for visitors. At just 53cm wide, Calle Varisco in the Cannaregio district is the narrowest street in Venice. In fact, it is one of the narrowest streets in Europe.Before setting-off for visiting these attractions the next day, we collated some information on the places which we are sharing with my lovely readers. I will be posting separate blogs on the places visited very shortly.

VENICE :

Venesia or Venexia is a city in north eastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges in a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. It has no roads, just canals – including the Grand Canal thoroughfare – lined with Renaissance and Gothic palaces. The central square, Piazza San Marco, contains St. Mark’s Basilica, which is tiled with Byzantine mosaics, and the Campanile bell tower offering views of the city’s red roofs.
The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice for over a millennium, from 697 to 1797. It was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance as well as an important center of commerce—especially silk, grain, and spice, and of art from the 13th century to the end of the 17th. The sovereignty of Venice came to an end in 1797, in the hands of Napoleon. Subsequently, in 1866, the city become part of the Kingdom of Italy.
Venice has been known as “La Dominante”, “La Serenissima”, “Queen of the Adriatic”, “City of Water”, “City of Masks”, “City of Bridges”, “The Floating City”, and “City of Canals”. The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its the birthplace of Baroque composers Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi.

THE DOGE’S PALACE :

 The Doge’s Palace is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the former Republic. It was built in 1340 and extended and modified in the following centuries. It became a museum in 1923 and is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

ST. MARKS SQUARE :

Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark’s Square, is the principal public square of Venice, where it is generally known just as la Piazza. All other urban spaces in the city are called campi. The Piazzetta is an extension of the Piazza towards San Marco basin in its south east corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together. A remark usually attributed to Napoleon calls the Piazza San Marco “the drawing room of Europe”.

SANTA MARIA BASILICA :

Santa Maria della Salute, commonly known simply as the Salute, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana. It stands on the narrow finger of Punta della Dogana, between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, at the Bacino di San Marco, making the church visible when entering the Piazza San Marco from the water. The Salute is part of the parish of the Gesuati and is the most recent of the so-called plague churches. In 1630, Venice experienced an unusually devastating outbreak of the plague. As a votive offering for the city’s deliverance from the pestilence, the Republic of Venice vowed to build and dedicate a church to Our Lady of Health. Construction began in 1631. Most of the objects of art housed in the church bear references to the Black Death. The dome of the Salute was an important addition to the Venice skyline and soon became emblematic of the city, appearing in artworks both by locals, such as Canaletto and Francesco Guardi, and visitors, such as J. 

THE RIALTO BRIDGE :

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice. Connecting the sestieri of San Marco and San Polo, it has been rebuilt several times since its first construction as a pontoon bridge in 1173, and is now a significant tourist attraction in the city. Grand Canal is the main waterway of Venice. It is lined on each side by palaces and spanned by the Rialto Bridge.

PALAZZO SANTA SOFIA PALACE :

The Ca’ d’Oro or Palazzo Santa Sofia is a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, northern Italy. One of the older palaces in the city, its name means “golden house” due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls. Since 1927, it has been used as a museum, as the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti. It has long been regarded as the best surviving palazzo in Venetian Gothic architecture, retaining all the most characteristic features, despite some losses. On the facade, the loggia-like window group of closely spaced small columns, with heavy tracery with quatrefoil openings above, uses the formula from the Doge’s Palace that had become iconic.The smaller windows show a variety of forms with an ogee arch, capped with a relief ornament, and the edges and zone boundaries are marked with ropework reliefs.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS :

The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri) is a bridge in Venice, Italy. The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone, has windows with stone bars, passes over the Rio di Palazzo, and connects the New Prison (Prigioni Nuove) to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace. It was designed by Antonio Contino, whose uncle Antonio da Ponte designed the Rialto Bridge. It was built in 1600.
The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge’s English name was bequeathed by Lord Byron in the 19th century as a translation from the Italian “Ponte dei sospiri”,from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the window before being taken down to their cells.

GRAND CANAL :

One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into the basin at San Marco; in between, it makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3.8 km (2.4 mi) long, and 30 to 90 m (98 to 295 ft) wide, with an average depth of 5 metres (16 feet). The banks of the Grand Canal are lined with more than 170 buildings, most of which date from the 13th to the 18th century, and demonstrate the welfare and art created by the Republic of Venice. The noble Venetian families faced huge expenses to show off their richness in suitable palazzos; this contest reveals the citizens’ pride and the deep bond with the lagoon.The churches along the canal include the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. Centuries-old traditions, such as the Historical Regatta [it], are perpetuated every year along the Canal.

SAINT MARK’S BASILICA:

SAINT MARK’S BASILICA

The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark (Italian: Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco), is the cathedral church of the Catholic Patriarchate of Venice; it became the episcopal seat of the Patriarch of Venice in 1807, replacing the earlier cathedral of San Pietro di Castello. It is dedicated to and holds the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of the city. The church is located on the eastern end of Saint Mark’s Square, the former political and religious centre of the Republic of Venice, and is attached to the Doge’s Palace. Prior to the fall of the republic in 1797, it was the chapel of the Doge and was subject to his jurisdiction, with the concurrence of the procurators of Saint Mark de supra for administrative and financial affairs.

MUSEO DE SAN MARCO (MUSEO CORRER) :

The Museo Correr is a museum in Venice located in the St Mark’s Square! It is one of the 11 civic museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. The museum extends along the southside of the square on the upper floors of the Procuratorie Nuove. With its rich and varied collections, the Museo Correr covers both the art and history of Venice.The Museo Correr originated with the collection bequeathed to the city of Venice in 1830 by Teodoro Correr, a member of a traditional Venetian family, Correr was a meticulous and passionate collector, dedicating most of his life to the collection of both works of art and documents or individual objects that reflected the history of Venice. Upon his death, all this material was donated to the city, together with the family’s palace which then housed it. The nobleman also left the city funds to be used in conserving and extending the collections and in making them available to the public.

MURANO :

The island of Murano is renowned for its long tradition of glass-making. Ferry-loads of visitors come to explore the Museo del Vetro, which tells the story of glass through the centuries, and to shop for locally crafted souvenirs. The Murano Glass Museum (Italian: Museo del Vetro) is a museum on the history of glass, including local Murano glass, located on the island of Murano, just north of Venice, Italy. The museum was founded in 1861. It was originally built in the Gothic style as a patrician’s palace. The building became the residence of Bishop Marco Giustinian in 1659. He later bought it and donated it to the Torcello diocese. In 1805, the Torcello diocese was closed. In 1840, the palace was sold to the Murano Municipality, who would use it as a town hall, museum, and archives. In 1923, when the Murano Municipality joined Venice, the museum came under the management of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE), its current operator.

BURANO :

Burano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy, near Torcello at the northern end of the lagoon, known for its lace work and brightly coloured homes. The primary economy is tourism. Burano is 7 kilometres from Venice, a 45-minute trip from St. Mark’s Square by vaporetto, a Venetian water bus. The island is linked to Mazzorbo by a bridge. The current population of Burano is about 2,400. Originally, there were five islands and a fourth canal that was filled to become via e piazza Baldassare Galuppi, joining the former islands of San Martino Destra and San Martino Sinistra. Burano has historically been subdivided into five sestieri, much like Venice. They correspond to the five original islands. The sixth sestiere is neighboring Mazzorbo.

The island was probably settled by the Roman, and in the 6th century was occupied by people from Altino, who named it for one of the gates of their former city. Two stories are attributed to how the city obtained its name. One is that it was initially founded by the Buriana family, and another is that the first settlers of Burano came from the small island of Buranello, about 8 kilometres to the south.

My dear readers may kindly point out any incorrect information in my above writeup needing any corrections! I am truly indebted to Wikipedia & for the invaluable information on the subject !Happy Reading !