TORRE DELL'OROLOGIO – The Venetian Clock Tower

We reached well ahead of time for the tour of the Torre Dell’orologio, the Clock Tower of Venice, thanks to Google Map’s excellent guidance (not so excellent, as we realized later) and walked straight to the Correr Museum where we were supposed to meet the guide for the clock tower visit. guide was there on time and with a small group of 9 people, we formed a line and waddled through the crowds to a seemingly hidden entrance to the clock tower. They can take only a maximum of 12 people every hour due to the narrow staircases and limited space available inside the clock tower, so we considered ourselves lucky to be there.

Clock tower behind me

The hidden entrance

The Venetian clock tower is the second most famous clock tower (Big Ben being the first of course) and built in the 1700s, it is still functioning perfectly. The clock-watcher’s family apparently lived inside the clock tower for generations until about 16 years ago when the post was abolished and engineers took over the maintenance. I’m sure it would have been a nightmare living inside that tower when every five minutes, there was a BOOM.

The clock has two faces – the back face that shows just the time in hours and the front face showing the time in hours, the month, the day and the zodiac. Just below this, there is a digital clock, which was added later comprising of two panels one each on the left and the right. The left panel shows the hours in roman numerals and the right panel showing the minutes in Arabic numerals (this changes only once every five minutes since both the panels have a similar 12 step mechanism only). It was fascinating to see the centuries-old clock’s working mechanism from the inside. 

Inside the clock tower

These guys go on a procession every year

View of the Piazza San Marco from atop the clock tower

There are two bronze statues of Do Mori (two moors – they are actually men wearing no pants) who strike the bell on the hour – the elder moor with a beard strikes the bell 2 minutes before the hour indicating the time gone and the younger moor strikes it 2 minutes after the hour indicating the future. There are so many of these bells and gongs going across Venice at odd

The moor's bum

times like this, although I don’t know the stories behind the other ones. The guide was pretty entertaining, informative and obsessed with the naked moors that she mentioned them almost 10 times during the tour. She was also the most excited to see them when we reached the top.

I am guessing the clock tower tour is not so popular, since they are available only 2 hours everyday in English. Italian and French guided tours are also available at certain hours during the day. But I highly recommend this tour, if not for anything else, the view of the Piazza San Marco from atop the tower is worth every penny!

Expenses:

The clock tower tour tickets can be purchased from www.vivaticket.it for €12.50 but comes at a reduced price of €7.50 if you have already purchased the Museum Pass (more about the pass later).