Danieli's Royal Hotel, which, I believe, was originally one of the Doge's palaces, is situated on the quay opposite the harbour, its side entrance being in one of the narrow canals. In the evening, after dinner, a band of musicians came into the inner court below, and serenaded the visitors with Venetian love-songs.
We enjoyed a peaceful night's rest after the fatigues of travel, fully anticipating a delightful awakening in this wonderful city.
The morrow came, with a lovely blue sky and bracing atmosphere, and after breakfast we took our first walk in Venice. Crossing the quay and certain of the little marble bridges that span the canals, and turning to the right, round the Doge's Palace, we found ourselves in _St. Mark's Piazza_--a great square, with colonnades of shops and _cafés_ running round three sides of it; the apartments of the royal palace rising some three stories on one side, and at the other end the beautiful Byzantine Temple of _St. Mark's_, with its antique mosaic arches, surmounted by the famous bronze horses and quaintly hooded domes, rising in exquisite outline against the clear blue sky. Around and above us flitted soft-hued pigeons in narrowing circles, alighting on the pavement in flocks to be fed by the visitors and children, not unfrequently perching on the hands of those who scattered food among them; and then flying off once more to "nestle among the marble foliage of St Mark's, mingling the soft iridescence of their living plumes with the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years." These little feathered beings are supposed to have some mystic influence over the welfare of Venice, and are believed by the legend-loving people to fly three times round the city every day.
At the entrance of the piazza towards the sea are two solitary columns, supporting the mighty emblems of St. Mark.
"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her love; St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood, Spared but in mockery of his withered power."
The first step taken towards seeing Venice was to ascend the great tower. Though its size is imposing, being some 320 feet high, it is an ugly structure, but commands most splendid views. The ascent is most easy--no tiresome steps, but simply inclined planes with brick-work flooring. On arriving at the top and looking down, I saw Venice flooded with the noonday light--"a golden city paved with emerald," stretching before me like a realized dream; the innumerable canals running up from the sea at right angles, while around and beyond lay the Adrian Gulf and the great sea, dotted with tiny islands covered with buildings;--the whole one vast lagoon or delta formed by the alluvial soil washed down from the mountains and deposited by the rivers. The city is built upon thousands and thousands of piles, the hard and costly wood for which was brought with vast expense from the East, and driven down into the earth and sand below. It was at such cost that the Venetians obtained so admirable a position, and were enabled to command the commerce of the world. The harbours were full of well-protected shipping, the narrow passages of deep water by which alone large vessels could pass, being marked by piles. It was strange to see the city, with its large and solid buildings and churches, floating as it were on the water: