Out of the hotel by 07:10 and heading, naturally enough, for Piazza San Marco, in the hope of some photos before the crowds arrive. There's much building and restoration work going on, mainly at the moment the project to underpin the Campanile. Messed around to see what I could do with the 12mm lens. Then back to the hotel for breakfast. Out again at 08:45, this time without the camera and camera bag, which felt really peculiar. I was heading for my 09:45 reservation at Basilica di San Marco, where bags are not permitted. The unreserved queue was already long.
They opened the door at 09:30, and I was among the first in. Wow! Every surface – including the pillars and arches and walls and domes – is covered with gold mosaic decoration, with accomplished illustrations even in quite insignificant places. The main design dates back to the 12th century. Paid an extra €2 to go into the Sanctuary to see the Pala d'Oro, the Golden Altar Panel, which is the most precious of San Marco's treasures. Another €2 for an audio descriptions, which of course I can't remember so I later bought a book on the Basilica.
Then to the Correr museum to ask about the English tours of the Torre del'Orologio, the clock tower just to the left of the Basilica, and bought a ticket for the 3:00pm tour. The ticket also gave me access to Museo Correr itself, and although I didn't have the time (or mental energy) for the main museum, which is fairly specifically Venetian, I did go into a temporary exhibition of the Bosnian artist Safet Zec, which I found interesting.
It was round about now that I found out about the vaporetto strike (see previous post), so it was just as well I'd crossed over to San Giorgio Maggiore, the church and campanile that feature in all the pictures looking out to the lagoon from Piazza San Marco, on the afternoon I arrived; a perfect Palladian masterpiece. It houses Tintoretto's The Fall of Manna and The Last Supper, painted as a pair between 1592 and 1594. Personally I preferred his 1990 Last Supper in the Duomo in Lucca, but who am I to judge? From there I went to the Redentore, another Palladian church, though it was officially closed when I got there so I only had a quick look inside from the doorway.
From Museo Correr I returned to the hotel, only five or ten minutes away, to pickup up the camera bag, and walked to the opera house La Fenice where I took an audio guided tour. No pics in the imposing auditorium unfortunately. Then spent ages navigating my way on foot to be roughly across the Canal Grande from the Ca' Fóscari, which Ruskin thought "the noblest example of late Gothic in Venice", and which is next door to Palazzi Giustinian where Wagner wrote Act 2 of Tristan and Isolde while he was living there.
Back to Piazza San Marco for my 3:00pm tour of the Clock Tower, pausing outside the Basilica to take photos of the mosaics over the doors before the sun put them half in sunlight and half in shadow. The interesting tour was given by a Venetian girl who provided much information about the history of the clock, which was built at the instigation of the Doge in the 1470s, and completed in 1499. The side facing the lagoon shows the time, full calendar, signs of the zodiac, and the phases of the moon (important for knowing high tides). The opposite face, over a narrow street, shows just the time. The clock strikes twice, just before the hour and just after.
Finally another struggle though the streets to the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, which was designed (probably) by Pietro Lombardo in the 1480s to house a painting of the madonna, which is still the altarpiece. It's a small but exquisitely beautiful church, impossible to photograph, but my offering for today:
