Bel and Phil's Adventures

By belandphilsadventures on June 23, 2018

Friday 22nd June 2018

Today we had our photo tour planned with Marc from ‘photo walk in Venice‘. The weather report said that it was due to rain all morning, so we pushed it back from 4:30 to 6:00 am! Yes that is right – I was up ready to take photos at 6:00 am!!!! Crazy hey?

Anyway we were off. Luckily, when we started it was dry, and hadn’t rained much at all overnight. We headed to St Mark’s Square and experimented along the way.

Lots of bridges

Venice view

Venice in its glory

Buildings reflected in the canal

It was so quiet and walking through the same streets was a little eerie with everything shut and no people around.

We got to the square and there were hardly any people (the advantage of coming so early in the morning). We started experimenting with Marc guiding us by suggesting angles and how to compose our photos better. He mentioned using lines and the geometry of buildings to build interest.

Close up of the mosaics on St Mark’s – depicting the old church

Bell tower in St Mark’s

The very empty square

Looking towards the water

Gondalas lined up

Cruise ship arriving

Focus on a holy figure – Mary

Looking back to St Mark’s on the right

Looking the other way

We then experimented around the Doge’s Palace, experimenting with different lines and focusing on details.

The Doge’s Palace

Bridge of sighs

One of the canals

We then headed into the side of Venice not often seen by tourists. We wandered through to the Arsenal (military area). We didn’t go inside, just walked around it.

The lion at the front of this gate is close to 2000 years old. It was old before it was placed here and has Viking writing on its body.

The lion on the other side

Photo of the entry of the Arsenal (military area)

We then headed into a residential area and the heavens opened! We still experimented with different settings.

Got to love a good fruit display

Vegetables for sale

Rain on the canal

Local area

Buildings

Perfect shot!

We then crossed onto another island, which is still part of the Castello district – Isola Di San Pietro. This was much more focused on fishing and other trades.

Isola Di San Pietro

Heading home

Boat repair yard

Watching the rain come down

We started heading back towards our hotel. It was still raining and I was a little wet (although we had umbrellas).

Street scenes

Hidden in an alley way

In an old building behind a church

Hidden gem in an alleyway

Close up of the well

We had a stop at a friend of Marc’s who owns a workshop where he creates and repairs gondolier’s oars. It was really interesting.

smoothing the wood

Items in workshops

Wood carving

Working on the oar

Oars created

Working

Working on the oar

Wood already worked

Wooden work

Repairing oars

Working on an oar

A piece of walnut wood carved for the Gondoliers

We got back to our hotel, thanks to Marc’s amazing navigation skills (and not taking the ‘scenic route’ also known as getting lost) and thanked him profusely. We learnt so much and had exactly the kind of tour we were after, having a glimpse into the life of Venetians, albeit in the rain – but we can’t control the weather. We headed up to our room and managed to catch the tail end of breakfast (it was just after 10:00 am). We relaxed and downloaded the photos.

We are really happy with the photos that we took with Marc and if you are travelling to Venice, you should definitely get in touch with him.