We began by walking, having decided on a visit to a church called Santa Maria dei Miracoli, which is so called because it houses an image of the Virgin Mary believed to have miraculous powers.
The church was built between 1481 and 1489, and is strikingly decorated outside with panels in various shades of marble.
The inside is embellished with pink, white and grey marble and there is a barrel vaulted ceiling which had 50 portraits of saints and prophets. You can either see the photo of the barrel vaults or the one of the miraculous image, so I have chosen the one with the image.
The image in this photo is rather small I’m afraid, I wanted to get some of the surroundings as well.
Outside, we crossed little canal bridges and we noticed the high numbers of people who were taking the expensive gondola trips.
Venice is extremely busy with this being a Biennale year, which might explain the high numbers of tourists in gondolas. However, Venice has become much busier and more crowded since the last time we were here a few years ago; we certainly didn’t notice so many people taking gondola trips last time.
Our next visit was to another church fairly nearby, Santa Maria Formosa. This one, at one side of the Campo Santa Maria Formosa, is not so handsome as the last one and is much bigger.
Inside, I was quite taken by this painting of St Barbara, surrounded by other saints, and the dead Christ supported by Mary at the very top. It is by Jacopo Palma il Vecchia, a painter with whose work I am not familiar.
By the time we had viewed all the paintings in this church, it was well past lunch time, so we stopped for a drink and a sandwich at a bar at the corner of the Campo. Then, refreshed, we set off for the Rialto.
The crowds here were awful. It was really difficult to walk anywhere and we were obliged to do so very slowly indeed. This was not good for my back! Once we were on the Rialto Bridge, there were so many people taking photos I had to queue to to take mine.
However, I think it was worth the wait. Just call me Canaletto!
We then went in search of another chorus church, San Giovanni Elemosinario, which we failed to find in spite of wandering about for a long time. This church apparently cannot easily be spotted from the street as it is part of another building. Apple Maps misdirected us, we seemed to be getting nowhere, the crowds made progress difficult and we were so late that the markets we had hoped to see were closed. In the end we decided to give up and return to base. It was almost 5pm anyway, so we caught a water bus down the Grand Canal, not forgetting to photograph San Marco as we passed.
At Arsenale, we changed water bus to another line to take us right round to Fondamenta Nove. On the way, we passed the hospital, with ambulances waiting outside. Stupidly, it had not previously occurred to me, but all the ambulances are of course boats.
A little further on we heard a siren, and one of the ambulances passed us at great speed, throwing up a huge wake which completely soaked our boat. A couple of other English tourists unwisely sitting by an open window got very wet indeed, and I made a mental note to keep the boat windows closed when not taking a photo!
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