The Lion of St. Mark

The Lion of St. Mark is the symbol for Venice.  It is everywhere....and I mean EVERYWHERE.  On our first full day in Venice we took a tour with a wonderful guide named Luisa, who led us on "a lion hunt."  Luisa is British, but has lived in Venice for 12 years and knows it inside and out.  She has young children and was amazing with the boys.  She, however, has girls and didn't truly understand what she was doing when she told the boys she wanted them to keep track of the number of lions they saw to see who found more.  It was brutal!

Once again, touring with a guide who loves the city really gives you a feel for the place, not just the facts.

Here are just a few of the many lions we saw around Venice:

 We all agreed this one was kinda creepy and sort of looked like Scooby Doo.  Luisa said many of the statues in Venice were stolen from other places that Venice conquered.  I can just hear her British accent imitating the ancient Venetians, "Oh, there's a lion ~ it must be St. Mark ~ let's take it!" Many were put together like puzzles from pieces of different statues ~ "Scooby Doo" was one of them.

I liked this one ~ it made me think of Aslan.

To end our tour, Luisa escorted us to an awesome pizza place.  We were blessed to be able to schedule another tour with her later in our stay.  She is an expert in Venetian art and she walked us through the Accademia, one of the premier art museums in Venice.   What a wonderful lesson in art history ~ we all learned SO much.