Venice is a very interesting city. It feels a bit like an amusement park. It's a bit over-stimulating. And, of course, as has been the case this entire week, there are tourists everywhere. Without realizing it, we made this trip during one of the busiest tourist times of the year. There are large crowds of people just everywhere and Venice may be the most crowded of all.
This may be because this is a port city. Lots of cruise ships dock here and the passengers swarm into the city. Venice may also be the most crowded simply because it a very dense, overbuilt pedestrian city. There are
absolutely no cars and no motorbikes. I haven't even seen any bicycles. Everyone is on foot.
We had a brainstorm today at breakfast. We'd been talking about taking a ferry to the island of Murano (Dad's idea), and then we spotted a poster in the lobby of the hotel advertising a boat trip to three local islands, including Murano. It seemed perfect for us, so we had the hotel clerk call and reserve three spots.
It was a beautiful day for a boat ride. We left from a dock just about 50 yards from our hotel.
We were on a pretty good
sized boat, with about 25 others, and there was plenty of room to spread out and take in all the views. Our itinerary was as follows: We pulled into the Canale di San Marco and from there we went to (i) Murano, (ii) Burano, and (iii) Torcello. Overall, it was a 3-1/2 hour trip. We left the dock at about 9:30 am and we returned at 1:00 pm. There was a "tour guide" but she was a bit of a disappointment. Her commentary (in four languages) was extremely brief and became non-existent on the return trip. No matter. We enjoyed the boat ride and the cool sea breezes. It was a beautiful day!
Our first stop was Murano. I always thought that "Murano" glass referred to a producer. It does not. Rather, it refers to the entire island where dozens of glass blowing manufacturers are located. Unfortunately, we saw none of the island. Instead, we docked at the pier of
one of the glass shops. We were taken to one of the furnace rooms and given a demonstration of glass blowing. Two men worked on a single piece. In the space of about 10 minutes a molten blob of glass turned into a horse! It was pretty neat. What skill these guyshave. We were then directed into the showroom where I proceeded to make my most expensive purchase of this trip -- a set of 8 liqueur glasses. They are each a different pale color and each has a gold leaf stem.
Our next stop was the island of Burano, which is known for its hand made lace. At this island, we had greater freedom to roam around, but not much time to do it. It was a really cute little island. The houses are painted a wide variety of bright colors, and the island is known as much for that as for its lace. It created a beautiful scene and, once again, we took a lot of pictures. We made our obligatory stop in a lace shop and made some not-so-obligatory purchases. I hadn't planned it at all, but
I bought a beautiful lace tablecloth with 8 matching napkins. They have lace details and lace edges.
From the linen store, we walked down the main street of the island. Our time was up much too quickly and we had to hustle back to the boat. This island is very small. We probably could have walked the entire island in 10 minutes. One other interesting feature of Burano is a leaning bell tower. The foundation is being eroded away by the water. I wonder if anyone is placing bets on when it might fall over!
Our third and final island stop on this excursion was Torcello. But I am getting very sleep now, so I will continue tomorrow.
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