After a morning doing our laundry at the busiest time of day, we dropped into a bakery for a cheap lunch.
Afterwards we decided to brave the crowds and visit the Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale) in San Marco. Surprisingly the queue was short and we spent a while exploring this grand building. The inside was largely bare of furniture (which we're noticing is a trend in European historic houses) with very little information given beyond who painted the walls and the ceiling and what school they belonged to.
A blurry picture of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, or Great Council Hall.
A view of San Giorgio Maggiore from Palazzo Ducale.
The palace had an amazing number of waiting rooms and committee rooms, with the Grand Council chamber being the most enormous and impressive.
We crossed the Bridge of Sighs that links the palace to the prisons, resisting the temptation to sigh unlike most of our fellow tourists. The prison was one of the first purpose built in the world, and was intended to improve prisoners' conditions. Casanova is supposed to have escaped from here. There was some interesting graffiti but very little explanation.
View from the Bridge of Sighs.
David in the prisons.
After our luck with the queue earlier, we were again lucky to find the queue for the campanile to be relatively short. The campanile was rebuilt in 1902 after the earlier one collapsed and today tourists are only allowed up by lift. The view from the top put Venice in perspective and we were grateful that the huge bells weren't rung while we were up there.
The Campanile.
View from the Campanile, towards Dorsoduro and Giudecca.
View across Venice towards the mainland (Mestre).
That evening we wanted to try some authentic Venetian cuisine at a restaurant called Antica Besseta. To get to the restaurant we went down the narrowest street we had seen (about 50cm wide). Sitting outside enjoying some delicious food (David had a delicious prawn and saffron pasta) it was funny to see lost tourists searching for the street only to be startled that they were in fact looking for the narrowest crack between two houses. Several others called into the restaurant - the only one on this lovely, quiet back street - for directions throughout the night.
A very narrow street.
And a very low street.
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