Private cruise: San Lazzaro degli Armeni and San Giorgio Maggiore Islands

San Lazzaro degli Armeni, a little jewel of the lagoon, dedicated to San Lazzaro, patron saint of the leprouses, was first a leper hospital. After a few centuries of decay, at the beginning of the 18th century, a community of Armenian monks, settled here. They turned the old buildings in a monastery so that the island became an incredible cultural center, important for the collection of books and for the typography opened in 1789.

Looking at the lagoon, from St. Mark’s square, the white shape of a classical temple appears surrounded by the waters. It is San Giorgio Maggiore Church, one of the Palladian buildings in Venice, in San Giorgio island. Also known in the ancient times as the “cypresses island”, it was first a settlement of a Benedictine community. Far from the crowded St. Mark’s Square, the island offers a breathtaking sight from the top of the bell tower, the façade that Venice showed to her visitors coming from the sea.