Venice Family Hotels

San Marco Square creates the center of Vienna. It's also the lowest point in the city, that's why it often gets flooded, especially in winter. The square is surrounded with marvelous buildings: San Marco Basilica, the Palazzo Ducale di Venezia, the Campanile belfry and the Marciana Library. To the right from the basilica takes place the Piazetta that leads to the Grand Canal. The first San Marco Church was built in the 15th century for keeping San Marco's relics, which were from Alexandria. This church burnt down and this very place in the 11th century the basilica that we can look at now was created (by the way, they used the fundament of the first church). Besides that, the historians suppose that there they keep the relics of Alexander III of Macedon, which were lost right at the time when they found the relics of San Marco. The basilica has five cupolas and a great number of arches, towers and other architectural decorations that appeared thanks to the treasures, delivered by the Venice ships from the East. That's why nowadays in the treasury of the basilica (Tresoro) one can see the Byzantine silver, gold, crockery that were seize during the fourth Crusades in the 13th century. At the same time as a trophy they took the quadriga, which decorated the fronton of the basilica. By the way, the horses of the fronton are only a replica of the original, which since 1990 is a part of exposition.

The Basilica itself suffered a lot from plunders. During the seizure of Venice, Napoleon stole the jewelry, which used to decorate the icons of the Golden altar (Pala d'Oro), the main altar of the church. Nevertheless, nowadays this composition of lots of small icons is in good condition. Napoleon also stole the fronton quadriga, but in 1815 it was returned to Venice.
Read more: guide to Venice with maps, photos and weather conditions.

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