Italy II

Postcard showing the Doge's Palace, and the Piazza San Marco, part of the Venice and its Lagoon World Heritage site. The Palace, built in 1340 in Venetian Gothic style was the home of the Doge, the leader of the Venetian Republic, elected from an inner circle of powerful Venetian families. One of the doge's ceremonial duties was to celebrate the symbolic marriage of Venice with the sea. This was done each Spring by casting a ring from an elaborate barge into the Adriatic. The doges rules the Venetian Empire for more than one thousand years before being forced to abdicate by Napoleon in 1797.

Many thanks to friend Laura who was visiting.

Two not terribly exciting definitive stamps from the Italian Posts.

Italy

Cannobio is an Italian town on the shores of Lake Maggiore. The area has been settled from as far back as the Roman times. The town's fortunes have waxed and waned over the centuries and have been particularly prosperous during times of smuggling from across the border in nearby Switzerland. Part of the Lake Maggiore and Lake D'Orta Lakelands site on Italy's tentative World Heritage list.

A rather utilitarian and uninspiring Italian postal label.