We’re back on a SLSG tour today, meeting our guide to the Doge’s Palace on St. Marks Square in the garden, where we seek shade from the 90 degree, 80 percent humidity.

Our group becomes 12 people and none of know who our guide is so when we’ve waited 15 minutes beyond our meeting time, we wander around hunting for a likely flag holder.

Donatella looks like Eva, our Borghese guide: thin, intense woman with a twinkle in her eye. Main difference: Donatella puts the “ah” sound at the end of every word. “We-ah will-ah go-ah now-ah to-ah the-ah front-ah entrance-ah.” Unless she says an actual Italian word, like the name of a painter or Doge. It takes us about 4 hours to get used to this-ah diction-ah.

We do get into the palace readily and the inner court is surprisingly empty: the long colonnades on the left and right squared off by the dome of St. Marks basilica at the left end (unfortunately with some renovation in the middle of its facade) and the Giants staircase at the right end, topped by Sansovino’s huge statues of Mars and Neptune, representing Venice’s dominance on land and sea.

We go up a wide staircase on our right, the “renaissance” side, to the first-floor loggia: a long series of large rooms for political and administrative affairs.

Donatella shows us the “mail boxes” where complaints could be submitted. They had to be signed by the writer AND two witnesses). These administrative offices have walls and ceilings painted by numerous artists from multiple centuries, frequently Girolamo Bassano, Veronese, and Tintoretto and his workshop.

But-ah I-ah won’t-ah bore-ah you-ah. Look at the pictures. Amazing place: Built and rebuilt since the 9th century, THE administrative heart of an empire for a thousand years stuffed with the art to prove it.

We get refreshments from the cafe and mosey out of the palace and into the Basilica.

Even if you aren’t religious, this place is inspiring. The nave, the alter, the ceiling, the floor, the carved columns … opulent, impressive, lush, FUN! Everything Venice wanted visitors to feel.

We move to the museum galleries on the second floor where the first thing we see is a collection of mosaics discovered during renovations of the original church.

It’s a scorcher and we are fried. Back to the hotel for showers and an early last dinner for 4.