Murano, Burano, Torcello & More Venice
Trip Start
May 02, 2008
1
21
28
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Where I stayed
Venice, Italy
Thursday, May 22, 2008
- boat trip to the islands of Murano (glass-making), Burano (lace-making), & Torcello (largely uninhabited). Since the trip was part of a 1/2 day tour, there wasn't much time at each place but we can always go back later.
- Sherry got very excited at Murano when she looked at the glass artworks in one of the shops/manufacturers ... the pieces on display were just amazing. They really are works of art! Not quite so excited when she looked at the price tags ... but they really are stunning.
- Burano was more interesting for the brightly coloured houses there. Apparently, the fishermen painted their houses different colours so they could spot them more easily when returning to port ... but it gives the whole place a really bright feeling.
- the lace making was interesting and we can appreciate the craftsmanship involved but since we don't have a lot of lace in our house, we were more interested in the houses
- Torcello used to have about 20,000 people living there ... but now it's about 200 so the whole place is much less crowded, which is a nice change after the streets of Venice! It's also interesting to see how the islands would have looked before everyone built their houses. They are trying to preserve some of the natural habitat of this island and avoid some of the issues Venice has.
- returned to Venice & went for a walk down the Eastern end of the island. Very pretty park & gardens there and not many tourists!
- had dinner at a place where it looks like not too many tourists frequent. About 90% of the people there seemed to know each other! The restaurant had a live act, who thought they were the next 2 tenors, but sounded more like karaoke after a few beers. Of course, this just added to the atmosphere and all the locals joined in so you couldn't hear the singers anyway and pretty soon, the whole place was going off! They all got particularly excited when one of the girls started dancing in the middle of the restaurant!
- what a fantastic place!
- walked back to Piazza San Marco, took some night photos and returned home, pretty much without getting lost!
