Date of this event: 23 March
**A shout out to
Kristen because without her, we probably wouldn't have done this activity. Many thanks Kristen!!
While most tourists in Venice choose to climb the San Marco di Campanile, we took a different approach to get views of the Venice and its surrounding area from above. The
Church of San Giorgio Maggiore is located on its own island (same name as the church), and it is located just across the water from the main square.
Luke and I didn't have anything planned for Venice (there really isn't much to do in Venice), but going up this tower was a must. I initially wanted to make the trek on our first day, so we could get it out of the way, but with super foggy weather on Friday, that just wasn't going to happen.
On Saturday, we made a day trip to Burano (more on that later), so the tower wasn't really a great option then either. Fortunately, the weather turned out pretty nice after lunch on Sunday, so it was the last thing we did before saying goodbye to Venice.
It is only possible to get to the church by waterbus (aka vaporetto). Luke and I took the long route to the island passing by the cruise port (where, thankfully, no cruise ship was docked for the day), and we also got to see
Giudecca (another island of Venice). We were only two of six people to get off on the San Giorgio Maggiore island, so we knew we wouldn't have to fight for views in the tower.
Everyone else that got off of the boat with us, went straight to their destination allowing us to take as many pictures across the water as we wanted without those pesky iPad's in the way. The wind was so brutal I couldn't keep my hair out of my pictures :-(
Those clouds don't look so good in these pictures, but it was the aftermath of rain on Saturday evening/night and Sunday morning. The entrance to the tower was inside the church toward the back. There was a pretty good amount of scaffolding inside the church, so we didn't really stop to look around.
It was €6pp to go up the tower, and luckily there was an elevator! As it was departure day for us, we had our backpacks with us and climbing a bajillion stairs would not have been fun! Once we got to the top, there were only about four other people. We were blown away by the view (and the wind)!!!
If towers look like they are leaning, it's because Luke takes great pictures and shows that they actually are leaning.
Luke was really impressed with being able to see people in this tower through the long lens.
Luke and I almost leaped (leapt?) over the tiny ropes at one point because the bells gonged a single time. Crazy loud... I am so glad we were not up there for multiple gongs!
Zooming in on San Marco Square...
We spent about 30 minutes at the top of the tower before we realized we were getting close to departure time. I'm so glad the weather cleared up for us! We both really enjoy views from above while we travel :-)
Other posts on Venice:
Burano,
General
RANDOM FACT:
The main islands of Venice have around 118 churches with 115 of them being catholic.
source
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