Venice - meanderings

As mentioned in the last blog, we decided to just wander around and see what we could find. We found a lot of Canals, but they are so pretty we all took lots of photos :)

I have no idea where any of these canals are, we just crossed bridges and went where we felt like!

We didn't go on a Gondola but we saw plenty of them :)

This one has a canal name, the building on the right turned out to be the Opera House, La Gran Teatro La Fenice.

The Gran Teatro La Fenice from the front. This is a world famous Opera House, we didn't go inside but there are plenty of photos of the interior on the internet. 

This lovely sign was round the back of the building. La Fenice means The Phoenix. The sign looks very old but that might not be true as the building was destroyed by fire in 1996 for the third time in its history, leaving only the exterior walls (and this sign?)  intact. The Teatro was rebuilt and re-opened in 2004.

This is a lovely Hotel near to the Teatro, my daughter spent a night here after my son and I flew home, as she stayed in Italy visiting friends.

Lovely canals and amazing buildings.

Pretty bridges everywhere too.

Love the Gondola's :)

We finally found ourselves back in St Mark's Square, It was a shame that the front of The Basilica was covered, but I am sure the repairs being done were very necessary.

The four horses captured from Constantinople in 1204. These horses are actually replicas, but we had the chance to see the originals later in the week. More about them in a later blog :)

Everywhere you turned there were opportunities for amazing photos :)

We didn't see many cats, but this one lives in a Stationery shop near where we were staying.

Beautiful buildings.

The bridge in this photo is the famous Bridge of Sighs, the building on the right is the Doge's Palace. We visited the palace on our last day, more of that in a later blog.

We had a lovely time just wandering round the Calli's 

Our lovely daughter tracked down and booked a boat trip to the Islands for the following day, the next blogs will be about them :)