St. Marco Square and other Venice, Italy Things to Do Tips

Every see the movie “Birds” where the birds from hell come down attacking everyone? Well you can relive that scene at the Piazza St. Marco. Pigeons are everywhere, and are as bold as any found in NY city. Just buy some pigeon feed from one of the local vendors and be attacked by a flock.

Piazza St. Marco is the only space in Venice that is called "piazza" or square.. Everything else is simply a "campo" (field) or "piazzetta". It is also one of the lowest points in the city and frequently flooded. It’s pretty entertaining to watch the water rise and flood the plaza, forcing you to avert the puddles and walk on the raised wooden platforms that they have over some of the bad areas. So between attacking pigeons and puddles forming around you it’s all entertaining,

It has been the scene of some of the most important religious and political activities well as the center of Venetian social life for almost a millennium. The present shape of the Square was established in the XII century, for the meeting of Pope Alexander III and the Emperor Barbarossa by filling in Rio Batario and the dock. A small new Square was built with the columns of St. Marco and S.Todaro, the city's patron saints, overlooking St. Mark's Basin.

The present form reflects the works of many famous architects such as Sansovino, Longhena, Scamozzi, Rizzo and Tirani. San Marco is where you'll find most of the luxury shops and hotels as well as most services geared to tourists. It can sometimes be difficult to find shops selling things necessary for residents, which is another reason why Venetians like to grumble that tourists have ruined everything and that they city is declining before their eyes. But from what I saw, The Venetians like to complain about everything.

We did come back in the evening and the pigeons had gone to sleep and the water had gone down. Some of the café’s had life orchestra’s playing. Just beware that you cannot use the chairs there unless you purchase something. We sat down and bought a $12 cup of coffee.

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Address: Piazza San Marco

St. Mark the Evangelist corpse had almost as tough a time as Hector's. First the Christians of Alexandria had to fight off pagans who wanted to cremate his body. Then the Venetians had to steal it from Alexandria in 828 because Muslims were going to desecrate the church where it laid. To get the remains out of Egypt, the Venetians allegedly hid them between slices of pork, calculated to deter inspection by Islamic customs officials.

The present Basilica is the third church to be built on the site, following the one commissioned to celebrate the arrival of the body of St. Mark in Venice in 828. A fire struck the Cathedral in 976, destroying most of the building; thereafter the church was entirely rebuilt on a much larger scale, though using much of the ancient foundations and masonry. The body was thought lost in a fire in the first Basilica San Marco in the year 976, but "reappeared when the new church was consecrated in 1094." Now it sits in a white marble tomb at the Basilica.

In order to enter the church modest dress is required. The lines to get into the church can be long, even in the off-season. People without proper attire tend to hold up the line while they beg for an exception to the rule. The church has thousands of feet of mosaics, telling the stories of everything from Adam and Eve to Noah and the ark to stories of the saints. If you stop and look down at the floor, it too is covered with beautiful mosaics.

The interior of the church is especially beautiful when lit. After seeing the inside of the church, take the stairs that are inside the atrium, right near the entrance to the sanctuary. The stairs will take you to a small museum upstairs where you can see the restored original bronze horses and take in a view of the square. The horses have traveled a lot; they were taken to Rome by Nero; Constantinople by Constantine; Venice by the Crusaders; Paris by Napoleon and then finally back to Venice and into the museum.

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Address: San Marco Square
Directions: Basilica /Treasury :

Oct – May: Mon-Sat: 9:45 am – 4 pm , Sun,: 2 - 4 pm

Jun-Sep Mon-Sat: 9:45 am – 5:30 pm, Sun: 2 pm - 5:30 pm

Museum:

Oct – May Mon-Sat 9:45 am – 4 pm, Sun: 9:45 am - 4 pm

Jun-Sep Mon-Sat 9:45 am – 5:30 pm Sun: 9:45 am - 5:30 pm

Venice and the Rialto Bridge are synonymous. This famous landmark is immediately recognized and is always full of pedestrians on their way to or back from shopping. It is a wonderful place to watch and photograph the constant activity of boats on the Grand Canal.

This single span bridge has two parallel rows of tightly packed shops, selling jewelry, leather, masks, silk and souvenirs. Looking out from the Rialto Bridge you get a glimpse of history the hustle and bustle of daily life taking place for over 900 years. Get there early in the morning Tuesday thru Saturday and you'll be presented with the drama of the early morning produce market, where you'll hear buyers and sellers greeting each other in various tones of squabble. A little farther down is the open-air Pescheria (Fish Market), where you'll see many of the seafood you'll be eating for dinner. It's colorful and loud with many smells and sights.

The bridge as we see it today was built between 1588–1591 by Antonio Da Ponte, whose design was presented together with those of the most famous architects of that time. The construction was difficult because of the instability of the site and the height (25 feet). As we see it now, it is a great architectural masterpiece for its two sides of arcades, and contributes to make great the view of the Grand Canal. The Rialto Bridge presents two shops lines included in the three stairs by the central kettledrum sustained by Doric columns

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Address: Rialto Vaporetto Stop

The Grand Canal is the main thoroughfare through Venice. It is lined with magnificent palaces, each one more beautiful than the next. When you arrive at the railroad station, take the time to admire the view of the canal from the ponte Deglis Scalzi. Then hop on a vaporetto(a cheap water taxi), to enjoy all the sights and sounds of the canal (but watch out for pickpockets who seem to love the tourist just coming off the trains)

Running through most of the city, it "starts" from the lagoon at the train station, makes a large S-shape through the central parts of Venice, and ends by the Canal of San Marco at Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square). It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.

Its banks are lined with some of the most beautiful buildings of the city, amongst the many palazzos and churches are the Ca' Rezonico and the Ca d'Oro.

Venice is built on 117 small islands and has some 150 canals and 409 bridges (only three of which cross the Grand Canal) but because most of the city's traffic goes along the Canal rather than across it, there are only three bridges, the most famous of which is the covered Rialto Bridge

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Santa Maria della Salute is one of Venice’s best known monuments and It took its architect, Baldassare Longhena, all his life to build it and it was finished in 1687, 5 years after his death. This church was built to commemorate the end of the 1630 plague. In October of 1630, after nearly a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens had been killed by plague, the Venetian Senate made an offer to God: "Stop the plague, and we'll build a church to honor the Virgin Mary. The Venetian authorities honored their promise by giving the Virgin a prime chunk of real estate near the tip of Dorsoduro, where the Grand Canal merged with St. Mark's Basin.

It is called Salute because of that, since Salute means health, salvation in Italian. The resulting church wasn't completed until half a century later, in 1682. Designed by 20-year-old Longhena, The church is a masterpiece of 17th-century architecture. The dominating feature is its octagonal dome, which contains a lantern showing an image of the Madonna, while the smaller dome has a statue of San Marco.

The church really shocks you with its size and grandeur but also with how light and bright everything is in spite of its size. The interior consists of a nave, three chapels and a floor made of multicolored marble with a design of five roses in the centre. The magnificent altar, also designed by Longhena, is particularly ornate; to its right is Tintoretto's "Le Nozze di Cana", whilst the ceiling of the vestry is adorned with paintings by Tiziano.

The best thing about it is its chapels that have major paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and several other painters of that time. The church is made of white stone and it can be seen from any point of the city. The best pictures of the church come out if you can take them from the vaporetto as you are approaching it. The church is well lit during daytime and you are allowed to take pictures of the paintings inside. You can walk from Galleria Academia to Salute or you can take vaporetto # 1 to the stop at the stairs of the church.

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Address: Campo della Salute

Chiesa dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo—Called "the Pantheon of Venice" because of the doges' tombs within Dedicated to Saints John and Paul, this cavernous church is one of the largest in Venice. For the art buffs check out Bellini's The Polittico di San Vincenzo Ferreri, Lotto's Saint Anthony's Charity and three by Paolo Veronese. The Monument to Doge Pasquale Mocenigo is a masterpiece by sculptor Pietro Lombardo.

In the Campo stands Andrea Verrocchio's monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni. Payment to this famous mercenary was to be a statue in San Marco , but the doge put the figure in front of the Scuola di San Marco instead!

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Phone: 041-523-7510
Address: Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Castello