Happy New Year!

Woo hoo we’re back from Italy! And good thing too; with all that good food and wine I’d soon have to roll home.

What a great vacation: Venice, Florence and Bologna. (Yes, Bologna, poor old underrated Bologna – loved it!).

This week I’ll do my best to capture our travels via blog, so here’s my Sunday start – with wishes for a wonderful 2010!

To Venice we went on December 23.

After shlepping out at the crack of dawn, ready for an icy one hour+ cab ride to Heathrow (cold temps had followed our very wet snow just before Christmas), we got there in 30 minutes (safely, too!).

And after making our way through a maze of lines, then being pulled out by a Biritish Airways woman trying to do us a favor as we were traveling w/ kids, we were sent us to an area w/ no lines. Wherein we dropped our bags with a woman who made it quite clear we weren’t at a bag drop...

Happily, these bags did roll off the carousel in Venice.

After breakfast at Giraffe (apparently one of those must do kid eateries that we hadn’t yet done), a delayed bus to a delayed plane and then a wait on de-icing, we were off!

We rolled in not long after schedule to a lovely day in Venice – blue skies and crisp. We were taken by van to a private water taxi for a gorgeous entry into the city (and auspicious hotel drop off).

We stood at the back of the boat and enjoyed weaving through canals, passing palaces and churches, bridges and gondolas, the occasional trash barge…and wound up at the Hotel Concordia (a short walk from our canal drop off).

After checking in with drinks in the lobby, we headed to St. Mark – THE famed Venetian Cathedral.

St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) is one of the best examples of Byzantine architecture in the world. Adjoining the Doge's Palace, San Marco has been the seat of the Archbishop of Venice since 1807.

The first St. Mark's church in Venice was a temporary building in the Doge’s Palace, constructed in 828, when Venetian merchants stole the supposed relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist from its original resting place in Alexandria, Egypt.

It is said the Venetians hid the relics in a barrel under layers of pork to get them past Muslim guards. The escapade is depicted in the 13th-century mosaic above the door farthest left of the front entrance of the Basilica.

The original St. Mark's church was replaced by a new one on the present site in 832. The new church was burned in a rebellion in 976, rebuilt in 978, and the basis of the present basilica was formed in 1063.

It was consecrated in 1094, the same year the body of Saint Mark was supposedly rediscovered in a pillar by Vitale Falier, doge of Venice at the time.

While the basic structure of the building has been little altered, its decoration changed greatly over time. The succeeding centuries, especially the fourteenth, all contributed to its adornment, and seldom did a Venetian vessel return from the Orient without bringing a column, capitals, or friezes, taken from some ancient building, to add to the fabric of the basilica.

St. Mark's Basilica is designed on a Greek cross floor plan and modeled after Constantine's Church of the Holy Apostles (now destroyed) and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Inside are gilded mosaics that cover the walls and ceilings — around 8,000 square meters of them!

The 12th-century interior mosaics recount events of the New Testament; the 13th-century mosaics depict scenes from the Old Testament. Other stories depicted through mosaics include the story of the Virgin, the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Clement, and events in the lives of St. John the Evangelist, St. John the Baptist and St. Isadore, the great pantheon of saints venerated by the Venetians and of course -- and most important -- St. Mark.

The impressive gold background symbolizes the Divine and the light of God himself.

The intricately-patterned floor is a 12th-century mixture of mosaic and marble in geometric patterns and animal designs. A red medallion in the floor inside the main door marks the spot where, in 1177, Doge Sebastiano Ziani orchestrated the reconciliation between Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Pope Alexander III.

Over the high altar is a baldacchino on columns decorated with 11th-century reliefs. The altarpiece is the famous Pala d'Oro (Golden Pall), a panel of gold embedded with gems. It was commissioned from Byzantine goldsmiths in 976 and further embellished over the centuries. Napoleon stole some of the precious stones in 1797, but there are still plenty left, gleaming behind protective glass.

The Horses of Saint Mark were installed on the basilica in 1254. They date to Classical Antiquity; by some accounts they once adorned the Arch of Trajan. The horses were long displayed at the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and in 1204 Doge Enrico Dandolo sent them back to Venice as part of the loot sacked from Constantinople (Istanbul) in the Fourth Crusade.

They were taken by Napoleon in 1797, restored in 1815 and remained in place until the 1990s. They now reside in the basilica's museum in an upper gallery; replicas take their place on the facade.

We went through the museum portion of the cathedral, saw these lovely horses, among other things, and walked around the outside of the façade, where the replicas are displayed. Lovely view of the square and Grand Canal, the Doges Palace, and of course a unique view of the outside of the cathedral.

We then let hunger dictate our next move; after wandering through narrow streets and passageways, past a couple small outdoor markets, we found a bar (café) near the Rialto (famous bridge and Venice’s city centre). There we enjoyed grilled paninis, prosecco and red wine. Not a bad way to start our Italian adventure.

Busy with locals and tourists, the bar had a happy buzz to it. We then checked out the area around the Rialto and eventually wandered back to the hotel for a break. I set out to explore some more and get some exercise – such a wonderful city to wander.

For dinner we tried a lovely little enoteca (wine bar/restaurant) not far from St. Mark’s Square. Wooded, with candlelit tables, friendly waiters who were great w/ the kids and delicious food – I had fried fish and shrimp, Joe tried black lasagna (flavored w/ squid, I think), kids had their pasta (the start of an 11 day trend on this trip…) – though they both made off with some of my fish.

The best: a warm chocolate cake with eggnog sauce and tiramisu for dessert. The latter was the best we had on the trip, and we did try plenty of tiramisus in our wanderings!