Day 9 Venice

We started the day with a walk weaving our way to St Marks Square. The sunshine had disappeared replaced by a sea mist. We walked through the St Marks Cathedral and admired the mosaics and then joined the Secret Itineraries tour of the Doge's Palace in Inglese. The Doge was the Venetian equivalent to the King and their system of government ruled by the aristocracy lasted for approximately 800 years until Napoleon conquered Venice. The dominant theme of the government was conspiracies and spying hence behind the walls of Palace were secret passage ways to meeting and storage rooms and dungeons. Very reminiscent of 'Yes Minister' with their Inquiries recorded in triplicate. Casanova was imprisoned here for about 15 months but escaped .... you get to see his cell. We had booked on the Clock Tower tour. St Mark's Clock is unique .... It is 500 years old and until 1999 the same family had been responsible for its daily maintenance. Every 24 hours it needed to be wound twice - midday and midnight. Well worth climbing the tower because you get a great view of the Canal and Basin. Then we briefly toured the Correr Museum .... most of the explanations were in Italian but it was interesting seeing the Doge's coinage dating back to the 800's. We had had enough culture by this stage so bought gelato and enjoyed sitting in a palazzo watching the tourists. Not as many tourists in Venice and we have enjoyed not looking out for cars and mopeds. The only sounds you hear at night are boats. We have loved staying in Venice. On Friday we head to Milan on the train.