Wide Wednesday - "Artistic": Another super day

No prizes for guessing where we went today - yes, this shows the Piazza San Marco, Venice, in the centre of the photo which was taken from a boat on the Canale della Guidecca. The very fancy big building to the right of the photo is the Doge's (Duke's) Palace, with St Mark's Basilica behind and slightly to its left. To the right of the Palace you can just see a little of the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs): I didn't know before, but the bridge's name comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the little windows in the bridge before being taken down to their cells, never to see it again.

It was a very enjoyable day even though it required a two-and-a-half hour coach journey each way from our hotel at Lake Garda. As you can see we were very lucky with the weather after all the rain which Northern Italy had been having for 2-3 weeks until yesterday.

After arriving (the final part of the journey being by boat) we had a tour of some of the less-well-known parts of the city, which was fascinating, then after lunch we had a gondola ride.

The Basilica is beautiful from the outside but we didn't have time to go in. Rather than show a photo of the whole church I've chosen to upload a photo showing the detail of one of the frescoes on the front of thje building (1st extra). The second extra shows a couple of gondoliers taking their craft under a bridge: fortunately as you can see, the chap on the left did remember to duck (we were told that occasionally they forget...!).

I've just realised that the Wide Wednesday theme is "Artistic". Well this is a wide shot and things don't come much more artistic than Venice so I'll tag it for that - thanks to Bobsblips.