Venice: Saturday

On Saturday, we had a tour scheduled at the Doge's Palace at 10:45am.  So we started the day (after breakfast in our hotel) with a stroll around St. Mark's Square.  We tried something that we've never tried before, and I can highly recommend it.  It turns out the Rick Steves has some podcast audio tours of various places.  We downloaded all of the ones he had for Venice, and they were great.  So we started the morning with his information about the square.  We took a trip up the clock tower for some really nice views out over Venice.  Then we headed into the Doge's Palace.  We had signed up for the "Secret Itineraries" tour.  We really didn't have any idea what it was.  But it was DEFINITELY worth it.  What we didn't know was that we should have done our own self-tour of the palace ahead of time.  But we met up with the tour group for the secret itineraries tour, on which we were taken on a guided tour of places in the palace that are not open to the public in any other way.  We saw the offices (much less grand than the ones in the main part of the palace), where the secret documents were kept, the prisons (where Casanova and others were housed), and many other things.  It was definitely well worth it.

After the tour, we had reservations for lunch at a delicious restaurant a little bit out of the way of all of the main tourist hubbub.  After lunch, we headed back to the square and toured the Basilica (using Rick's audio guided tour again).  Then started the long walk...  We walked and saw the Frari Church (again with Rick Steves in tow) then walked around to the Santa Marie de Salute Church, which is along a peninsula that gives nice views back over towards the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Square.  There was an interesting statue of a boy with a frog there.  As we walked back around to the central part of Venice, the sun was setting, and a nice golden glow settled over the entire city.  I think dusk is the prettiest time in Venice.  We did a quick stop at our hotel to drop some things off then headed out to dinner.  We ate at a restaurant not far from the Rialto bridge, and we were fairly unimpressed by it.  We wandered some a little after dinner because Venice is also very lovely in the dark.  We found the festivities in Saint Mark's Square (cafes with orchestra music) a little too cheesy, but had a nice walk getting lost in the streets of Venice.