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On October 19, Mom and I kicked off an action-packed (read, "busy") tour of Italy, consisting of a bit over a day in Venice and two days in Rome. This page documents our fascinating and informative visit to La Serenissima.
We stayed at Hotel Cavalletto & Doge Orseoto, a confusing maze of stairs and corridors that is hidden in an almost equally confusing rabbit-warren of back-alleys just behind the Arcade of Piazza San Marco. The service was fine, but next time we'll bring a compass and a team of Nepalese sherpas.
Some of the most intriguing views of Venice came from the vaporetto, the water taxi that took us from the train station to Piazza San Marco. Cheap thrills.
We kicked off our visit with a tour of the Cathedral of St. Mark.
I didn't take any photos inside the Byzantine-style basilica, to be respectful (and also because it isn't allowed), but here are the recently restored portals.
This 13th-century portal shows the death of St. Mark, patron saint of Venice.
This one shows the Resurrection of Christ.
The next day we took an audio tour of the Palace of the Doges.
This is the main courtyard of the Palace.
This place doesn't look that big for a royal palace, but when you get inside it's huge. We enjoyed the tours of the rooms where the Doges and their Republic's government lived, but again no photos.
Except this one taken from inside the Bridge of Sighs. This bridge crosses a canal from the judicial chambers of the Doge's palace to the prison, and was the last glimmer of sunlight the condemned would ever see. 
What is Venice without canals? We didn't take a gondola ride because I failed to bargain the gondola jockeys down to less than US$50 for a half-hour ride, but we got a few shots of the canals as seen from the Riva Degli Schiavoni, the boardwalk alongside the Piazza San Marco, and from the vaporetto.
Here again is the Bridge of Sighs, seen here from the lucky side.
Mom and I enjoyed Piazza San Marco the best in the morning and evening, when the square isn't infested with sky rats. 
This broad mall connecting the square to the waterfront is called the Piazzetto. From a balcony of the palace overlooking the Piazzetto, the Doge was presented to the people upon his election by the city elders.
With just a little time left before our train for Rome departed, we opted for a quick and easy tour of the bell tower (elevators!).
We learned in the course of our tours that the lion, seen here on top of a pillar at the front of the Piazzetto, is the symbol of Venice. The beaver and the muskrat had already been taken by Canada.
And this is St. Theodore, the original patron saint of Venice. He got the boot in the 9th century when the Venetians stole the bones of St. Mark the Evangelist from the Egyptians and made Mark their new patron saint.
The view of the city was incredible from all sides.
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