Churches in Venice

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "HOT!"

It's been a wickedly hot summer here in NC (officially the hottest on record, they say), but none of the photos I've taken recently show how sweltering it's been. I couldn't find anything else for this theme in my archives but then inspiration struck in my local grocery store.

Habanero peppers. Beautiful but eat at your own risk! I once made a Jamaican stew using one of these peppers, and it was so hot that it was inedible. I had to throw it out in the yard.

Wasabi peas. Love these things even though they make me cry~

Hot candy. I've never tried it.

Texas Pete Hot Sauce. Love this stuff, but the name is misleading. It's been made here in North Carolina since 1929. I guess they didn't think "North Carolina Pete" would inspire people to buy a hot sauce, and Texas does have a spicier reputation.

Texas Pete is pretty mild as far as hot sauces go. It's vinegar-based so it's really more sour than spicy, but the flavor is good. It has a score of 737 on the Scoville Heat Scale. By contrast, those deadly habaneros' score is 100,000 - 350,000!

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend. Keep cool out there. Happy long holiday weekend to those of you celebrating Labor Day.

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This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Anniversary."

This Venetian shrine commemorates some kind of anniversary but I have no idea what these dates mean.

Also, this month is my blog's third anniversary (or blogiversary, a funny word that actually made it into the dictionary, according to Google). To celebrate, I'm re-posting the first photo from my first post.

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend.

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A weather-beaten but beautiful shrine in Castello, close to the Arsenale. It's hard to see but the stone relief inside shows San Antonio with the baby Jesus.

Love the colors of the wall surrounding this shrine.

There are images of San Giorgio and the dragon all over Venice; here are a couple you can find outdoors on the streets. As far as I know, this is the only shrine honoring this hero saint.

One of the many things I like about St. George is the fact that he not only has a couple of Catholic churches in Venice dedicated to him but also an Anglican church and a Greek Orthodox cathedral.

The dragon in the relief below has a double spiral tail like this other one here.

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "School."

A deconsecrated church in Venice that’s now a school.

One of the San Magno churches, Santa Giustina was founded in the 7th century and rebuilt several times over the centuries. The present building dates to the 17th century, and the sarcophagi on the façade are the resting places of members of the wealthy Soranzo family who paid for the rebuilding. The façade was designed by architect Baldassarre Longhena, whose most famous work is the beautiful church of Santa Maria della Salute which graces the Grand Canal.

Santa Giustina was closed in the early 19th century after the Venetian Republic fell to Napoleon. For a while it was used as a military academy, and since 1924, it’s been a science high school, the Liceo Scientifico.

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend.

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This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Natural."

This theme made me think of an e.e. cummings poem; here's the first stanza and you can read the whole thing here.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend.

You can find more Photo Hunters and join the hunt here.