After a good night's sleep and another big breakfast, we returned to St. Mark's Square to visit the Basilica. The interior is just as magnificent as the exterior, with gold mosaics covering the ceilings and walls, and marble floors.

This is a closeup of the mosaic over the front entrance.

St. Mark stands atop the highest point on the basilica's facade, surrounded by angels. These statues were added in the early 15th century. Below Mark is his symbol, the winged lion, with a book representing his Gospel.

We climbed the stairs to the interesting museum at the upper level. This also allowed us to walk on the balcony at the front of the basilica. Here we were able to see the replicas of the four horses.

We were not allowed to photograph the beautiful mosaics inside the basilica, but we had good views of some of the outdoor mosaics. This mosaic is at the right as you face the basilica. It is of the Ascension of Christ.

A closeup of the figure of Christ from that mosaic.

Another mosaic just around the corner.

From there we could also clearly see the pink marble of the Doge's Palace.

A view of the square from the balcony.

After a short walk for windowshopping in the square, we visted the Correr Museum, which gave us a good look at Venice's art and history. From there we took a vaporetto ride to Ca' Rezzonico, a museum of 18th century Venice.

The building was once owned by the wealthy Rezzonico family and is decorated with furniture and artwork of the 1700's.

We were especially impressed by the light and airy ceiling paintings of Tiepolo, the best-known decorator of palaces of his day.

Photo from the Web Gallery of Art.

A view from a window of the Ca'_Rezzonico.

The Fish Market near the Rialto Bridge.

After dinner, we took a vaporetto ride along the Grand Canal as it was beginning to get dark. This is the Ca' d'Oro, or House of Gold.

After this there was too little light for photos.

Our final morning in Venice we visited the Accademia Museum. This museum houses an important collection of Venetian paintings from the 14th century to the 18th, including masterpieces of the most famous masters like Bellini, Giorgione, Carpaccio, Tiziano, Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiepolo.

This is The Presentation of the Virgin by Titian.

This is The Feast in the House of Levi by Veronese.

These photos are from the Web Gallery of Art.

After lunch we took a vaporetto to the train station, where we boarded a train to Padua to begin the tour of Village Italy.