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Palace
with its different halls, and beyond is the Bridge of Sighs, leading to
the dungeons of the prison. But Venice cannot be adequately described. The
former splendor of the city, and the great events that have there transpired,
crowd upon one’s thoughts, while all that you now behold of the place
seems like the tomb of its ancient glory.
Excursion by gondola to islands in the vicinity are pleasant. A gondolier,
standing at the stern of his curious looking boat with a single oar, wafts
you gracefully and rapidly along. At Meurano you enter the extensive glass-works,
where beads for the world are made. You take a longer excursion to Lido,
and walk across it, and are now beyond the Langune of Venice, and wandering
on the beach of the Adriatic picking up shells and listening to the unceasing
music of its rolling surf. As you glide back over the smooth waters, and
under a transparent sky, Venice seems to rise out of the sea before you,
and the charming view you now obtain of it will remain daguerreotyped on
your memory as a perpetual pleasure.
There is a fascination about Venice that makes one leave it with reluctance.
Its situation in the sea is picturesque and unique; its palaces seem like
fading enchantments; its various life-like phases, ever on exhibition in
St. Mark’s Square, are a magnet of attraction; the dream-like excursions
by gondola along the narrow passages, or in the Grand Canal under the Rialto,
one likes to repeat; the glorious panorama of city, sea, and shore, and
distant Alps, from the top of the Campanile or Cathedral tower, is a vision
of beauty; and even the flocks of tame pigeons, always flying over your
head, or alighting at your feet, in St. Mark’s Piazza, win your kindly
regard.
At length the slow railway toward Milan bore us away.
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