We drove back through Slovenia to Italy, and had a wonderful lunch at Trattoria Blanch in Mossa. The rest of the day was spent in horrible traffic getting to the Treviso airport to return the car, and then on the bus to Venice. We had two solid days in Venice -- one gray, one sunny. We spent most of the time around St. Mark's Square, and did a little shopping. The following day we took the train to Trieste, where we had an afternoon to look around.

The romance of Venice.

A view of the city from the Campanile.

Other people going on gondola rides. We spent the 60 euros or whatever on dinner instead.

The Grand Canal from the Rialto bridge on a gray day.

St. Mark's Square. The little black spots in the sunlight are pigeons.

They'll never solve the pigeon problem if people are allowed to sell bird seed in St. Mark's Square. I have high hopes for avian influenza.

A photo showing a clever distribution of bird seed.

Drinking a $12 cappuccino at Cafe Florian, paying $6 each to listen to the bad live music.

The Basilica di San Marco. Frescoes over the entrance to the Basilica...

Replicas of the Four Horses on the balcony. The original horses are just inside in the museum. Air pollution would have destroyed them. Same with the Elgin marbles. Legitimacy of ownership doesn't guarantee proper conservatorship. Leave your house open to archiving burglars.

Pala d'Oro, a large jeweled gold panel behind the altar.

One of about a million panels from the Pala d'Oro. I'm glad the iconoclasts lost.

The entrance to St. Mark's Square from the canal. We went to the top of the Campanile on the sunny day. You can see a dome of the Basilica, and the large building on the right is the Palazzo Ducale.

Decor above the exit from the Palazzo Ducale.

In the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, where the doge of the Venezian government lived before Italy unified. Many other government functions took place here, including courts and a prison. Except for the prison, most of the rooms' ceilings and walls are covered with enormous oil paintings, one said to be the largest in the world. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside.

Slip your secret denunciation into this mailbox to get somebody in trouble.

The ceiling of the Golden Staircase.

Looking at the Grand Canal from the Bridge of Sighs, which condemned prisoners cross as they pass into the prison part of the palace.

Two products Venice is most famous for are glassware and masks. This shop had some spectacular masks, including one we regretted not having bought on the spot.

Venice dwarfed by a cruise ship. More photos around Venice...

James Joyce got to Trieste, also.

The Greek theater in Trieste. I wonder if McDonalds will have as many instances of its ruins in 2000 years? What stories will be told of the red haired deity? Were the ancients as annoyed at the franchising of Apollo, who presumably put a lot of local mom-and-pop gods out of business when he arrived with the force of the legions?

Idiosyncratic chimneys. I bet a real detective could identify a city by its chimneys.

Uncle Sam Needs You. Thousands of Americans burned the Italian embassy to protest this cartoon.

A war memorial. These guys could be put to such better use.

Mosaics in the ceiling above the altar of the Cathedrale de San Giusto.

Mosaics in the side chapels. Put in a coin and the light goes on for a few minutes.

Standing on birds. Why is that to be emulated?

This is an ad in the back of a Marvel Comics for a magic "levitate your friends" trick — oh wait, this is Respect All Religions Week. They've been setting such a good example of respecting each other for oh, 30,000 years. You'd think that if something was obviously true, you wouldn't have to kill people to get them to respect it, right? Nobody would burn the embassy of somebody who denounced the Theory of Gravitation or the Theory that the Sky is Blue. It's all these other assertions that require Faith (the nice word for arrant Pigheaded Prejudice). "You know it's completely impossible for a virgin to give birth! You know it's impossible for a man to walk on water or turn it into wine! If you had never heard these stories before and some guy sitting next to you on the subway told you that he saw this stuff happen you'd fuckin' move your ass away from the loonie and go sit in another car." — Tony Arena, Violin Outbreak #12 (quoted RFD #88 p23)

Trieste's town square at night.

On to Dave's Flight Home