by Ed OKeeffe

This photograph shows the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (which roughly translates to the Basilica of St Mary of Health/Salvation), commonly known simply as the Salute. It is a famous church in Venice, placed scenically at a narrow finger of land with the grand canal to the right as we look at it here, there is a waterbus just entering the grand canal in this image. Below is the page from my diary of what I got up to on the day this photograph was taken back in April 2004.

We left the hotel at around ten o’clock after breakfast and headed straight for St. Marks Square. After another look around the square in better lighting (for my photographs) we boarded another waterbus. This took us around the island. The plan was to stay around the St. Marks area but as it was a Sunday it was extremely crowded. Going around the island of Venice by boat was very interesting, seeing a more industrial side, with cranes and cargo ships. Seeing the Venetian Arsenal etc. We were heading to Burano with its peaceful coloured houses. It took about forty minutes by waterbus. And although it is only a small island, it was very beautiful and colourful. After a nice sit down and a hot chocolate, we headed back to Venice itself.

Back on the mainland we decided to go for a walk around the city, to see the less popular but still very interesting areas. We ended up at the Jewish Ghetto and saw monuments to commemorate Jewish abuse in World War II. Then we took a walk through the extremely narrow back streets to the hotel. Later that evening we went back to the same restaurant as the previous night (as we enjoyed it so much). It was the ‘Restaurant Pedrocchi’.