Day 6 Of Cruise - Venice, Italy
Today marks the half way point of the cruise (Christie - <cry cry cry>). We had another day in Venice and we had decided to take the ship's tour of Ca'Rezzonico, Doge's Palace & St. Mark's Basilica. After the standard morning or waiting for our "tourist" sticker, we caught our private vaporetto to St. Mark's Square where we met up with our guide. He must have been some sort of instructor this time because not only was he very knowledgeable, but he approached the tour as if he was teaching the class. The first stop on the tour was St. Mark's Basilica.
We actually had a scheduled entrance time so there was no time for explanations outside the Basilica (and there is no talking inside). We took the non-paid tour of the Basilica which meant we walked through the main part of the church. There was a longer tour where you could walk through more of the structure. The Basilica was very beautiful. Unfortunately you couldn't take any pictures inside. This Basilica was actually built in more of a Middle Eastern style where the structure forms a Gothic Cross rather than a Christian one. What this means is that the horizontal portion of the cross of the church occurs in the middle rather than at the far end of the Basilica. There are 5 domes in the Basilica rather than 4. All of the mosaics in the Basilica are formed differently than mosaics in other places. Normally mosaics and frescos would be painted, however because of the proximity of Venice to the sea, the air would cause any painted mosaics to peel. In order to prevent this, the mosaics were created by sandwiching gold between two pieces of glass and then glueing the pieces together to form a mosaic.
Next we saw the Doge's Palace. The Doge was the figurehead ruler of Venice who was elected by the Aristocrats for life. During the height of Venice's wealth they were the meeting place of quite a bit of the world. Venice made their fortune by using trade routes through the Middle East to India prior to the discovery of the water route around the southern tip of Africa. Venice provided a visible demonstration of their wealth in the Doge's palace much of which is covered in gold. Once again you could not take pictures inside the Doge's palace. This Doge's palace itself was partially destroyed in a fire in the 16th century. At the time it was rebuilt there were two prominent artistic styles in use: Renaissance and Baroque. Both styles of art are in evidence in the current Doge's palace. 
This provides quite a contrast in some areas where the Renaissance art, which uses many bright colors, and the Baroque art, which uses darker colors and focuses on contrasts is in the same room. The guide also explained where the term "Black Balled" came from. When the Aristocrats would vote (including voting on new members of the Aristocracy), they would cast their votes using a white ball for "yes" and a black ball for "no". Thus if you were up for a position in the Aristocracy and you were did not get it, you could say that you were "black balled".
From the Doge's Palace we headed to Ca'Rezzonico which is an Aristocrat's house that has been restored and setup as a museum. All of Venice is essentially built on a mud bank. In order to build, pylons were driven down into the mud to support the houses. There are areas that you can see where the floor has cracked because of the movement of the mud. The Aristocrats lived on the bottom floor of the houses and the servants lived above them in the houses. After all, it wouldn't be good for the Aristocrats to have to exercise too much.
At this point it was about 2:30 pm or so and we still had not had lunch so we stopped at the bar in Ca'Rezzonico where Lael got a mozzarella and tomato sandwich and Christie got some Italian cookies. Of course we managed to get some gelato for Christie as well on the way back to the ship. After we got back on the ship they were filming a promotional video and asked all of use to wear the Venetians masks that we had bought during our two days there. Lael & I enjoyed this party and got some pictures of us in our masks.
City of Venice
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We actually had a scheduled entrance time so there was no time for explanations outside the Basilica (and there is no talking inside). We took the non-paid tour of the Basilica which meant we walked through the main part of the church. There was a longer tour where you could walk through more of the structure. The Basilica was very beautiful. Unfortunately you couldn't take any pictures inside. This Basilica was actually built in more of a Middle Eastern style where the structure forms a Gothic Cross rather than a Christian one. What this means is that the horizontal portion of the cross of the church occurs in the middle rather than at the far end of the Basilica. There are 5 domes in the Basilica rather than 4. All of the mosaics in the Basilica are formed differently than mosaics in other places. Normally mosaics and frescos would be painted, however because of the proximity of Venice to the sea, the air would cause any painted mosaics to peel. In order to prevent this, the mosaics were created by sandwiching gold between two pieces of glass and then glueing the pieces together to form a mosaic.
