Part 1 of the Venice leg of our Italian road trip ended with our entrance into the Piazza di San Marco. That’s where this story begins.

As you can see on the map, the city of Venice isn’t made up of a single island, but multiple ones. This will prove interesting later on in the post, when you’ll see photos from the Campanile of the Piazza di San Marco (the Bell Tower). For now, let’s see what there is to see in the Piazza. As with the previous post, you can see the photos in the slideshow embedded below, or you can scroll down to see each photo and read my accompanying thoughts.

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There is, of course, the Basilica di San Marco, which will appear in my photos numerous times. Its architecture is byzantine in style, and it’s beautifully made.

And then there’s the Palazzo Ducale…

… and of course, masked participants in the Venice Carnival.

Tourists are, of course, a staple of any famous city, and Venice certainly is one of the most famous destinations in the world.

I love these old wrought iron street lamps. But notice they’re using CFL bulbs in them.

For this next set of panoramic photos, I climbed into the Campanile. This next photo is over 38 megapixels in the original.

This is the Piazza di San Marco from above. It was set up with a stage for the Carnival, and that’s why we can’t see the beautiful pattern of the pavement.

Remember what I said about Venice being made up of a group of islands. Here you can see one of the neighboring islands.

This next photo is over 25 megapixels in the original.

It was back down to the ground after about 45 minutes in the tower.

After we walked around the Piazza a while longer and took in the Carnival scene — they were doing some judging or strutting or whatever on the stage — we took our leave and left to see other sights in Venice, like this building below, or the cathedral after it.

Some very rusty iron pilings near a boat dock, with algae growing on them, provided a picturesque photo op.

This next photo shows the doorbells for different apartments located within a Venetian mansion.

This next photo shows The Crystal Trio playing on the streets of Venice. You can watch the video of their performance here.

We had a mid-afternoon lunch at a restaurant situated right on the Grand Canal. It doesn’t show up in any of the photos, nor do I care to mention it, because we were thoroughly disappointed with the taste and quality of the food. Premium prices and location notwithstanding, taste and freshness weren’t known there, and our stomachs attested to this afterward through some serious pains and grumbling. We made our way back to one of the water taxi stations, trying to ignore the malaise and take in the glorious scenery.

Maybe we should have eaten at this restaurant. The chef looks like a decent human being.

The next group of photos was taken from the water taxi, as we left Venice behind us.

After we got into our car, we headed down the coast, looking for a place to lodge. Incredibly enough, there was nothing until we got to a little town called Chioggia, where we found yet another 2-star hotel with 3-star accommodations. We settled in for the night, reviewing the photos taken in Venice and looking forward to the next leg of our trip.

If you’d like to license any of the photos you saw here, they’re all available in the Venice gallery of my photo catalog.