Leon's Message Board

We started off the day at perhaps the most famous square in the world, St. Mark’s Square, which features the Basilica di San Marco.The Rough Guide describes it as “the most exotic of Europe’s cathedrals” and observes that it was

modeled on Constantinople’s Church of the Twelve Apostles, the shrine of St. Mark was consecrated in 832, but in 976 both the church and the Palazzo Ducale were ruined by fire during an uprising against the doge. The present basilica was originally finished in 1094 and embellished over the succeeding centuries (p.327)

This shot shows some of our group at St. Mark’s Square as the morning began.

Group shot at St. Mark's Square. Photo by Leon Mauldin.

Among other sights we saw the Bridge of Sighs. From Wikipedia:

The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone and has windows with stone bars. It passes over the Rio di Palazzo and connects the old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace. It was designed by Antoni Contino (whose uncle Antonio da Ponte had designed the Rialto Bridge), and built in 1602.

One legend is that this bridge received it name from the prisoners sighing as they were walked across the bridge, seeing the outdoors, as well as breathing fresh air, for the last time.

Bridge of Sighs in background, with Linda and Leon Mauldin.

Tomorrow morning we are to travel to Florence, stopping at Pisa along the way.

Click on images for larger view.

UPDATE:
Nancy Picogna has downloaded some of her photos from the past two days. You may see there here and here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 at 4:37 PM and is filed under Italy, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.