The Travels of Eric and Lorna

Near the end of our visit, we went to the Palazzo Ducale , or the Doge's Palace .  For those who don't know anything about Venice, the Doge was the leader of Venice for centuries, from around A.D. 700 until Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Venice in 1797.  Needless to say, as the center of power for one of the most powerful city-states in the world, it's a pretty nice place. Here's another picture of the exterior.  The place is right on St. Mark's Square, near where one would traditionally enter Venice from the sea, which was the only way to enter it for most of the city's history.  Swanky! As you would expect, the interior was just as nice.  My favorite part was the armory.  Dude had a LOT of swords. The Golden Staircase. Statue of Hercules near the Golden Staircase. This is why it's called the Golden Staircase. A moderately sized room. Pretty much all the ceilings were done like this.  Never miss a chance to bling things out

Just a quick note on some of the food we had in Venice.  If you read guidebooks, you will hear that it is easy to find bad, or at least mediocre, food in Venice.  I have no doubt that this is true, as the number of tourists that visit there makes this likely.  We were very lucky, however.  Aside from some mediocre pizza we had the first day, the food we had was very good. As a quick aside, here are some general rules to follow to find good food on vacation.  These apply particularly to Italy, but I'm guessing they work about anywhere.   The rules are as follows: Avoid any restaurant that... 1. is next to or very close to a major monument, the largest square in town, etc. 2. has someone outside asking you to come in. If the restaurant was good they wouldn't need to do this. 3. has a big sign outside with pictures of the food.  Seriously, learn a couple of Italian food words.  It's not hard. 4. has English menus.  Actually, English menus are not always a bad sign, part