Day 13 - Venice and Beyond

Another beautiful 80 degree day in Venice. We talked to our hotelier about how best to get to Murano, the Venice island known for it's glass. He (very exuberantly) said that he could now offer us the same opportunity that the fancier hotels get - which is basically to get a free water taxi ride to Murano and a tour of a glass factory if we submit to a sales pitch. Since our tour book warned us that we'd probably get the sales pitch anyway, even if we took the public water bus there instead, we said yes. It turned out to be a good decision. We had a water taxi to ourselves...they are really kind of like limousines, and then had a nice tour of some glass makers making glass chandelier pieces. Then it was a tour of their galleries, which were really like a glass museum, full of absolutely stunning pieces. Well out of our (and probably many Kuwaiti tycoon's) budget, so the tour ended at the "trinket" gallery - lots of glass beads, pieces of "candy" and bizarrely plain Christmas ornaments. We opted out, and were shown the door, but really, it wasn't painful - the limo to the island was great, the tour was nice, and the galleries were beautiful. One quick "no" and we were off to explore. What we learned is that this indeed an island of glass - every store offered up jewelry, vases, glassware and more. The public art is all glass - even the street side saints (present in every city we've been to in Italy) have offerings of glass flowers instead of real ones. This was my only day of shopping...as Rich's mom can attest, he isn't one for shopping on vacation. But we didn't linger long. We were off to Burano, another island - this time via vaporetto water bus. This island is known for lacemaking, but from what we've been told, most of what is for sale comes to Burano via China and Taiwan. What Burano is also known for is it's charmingly painted houses - similar to what we saw in Cinque Terre or Amalfi, but with more vibrant color choices. It was a very pretty town. After a very expensive but delicious lunch including the local seafood risotto, and some boat peeping (which is a vacation hobby for Rich) we hoped a big ferry back to Venice. Time for our daily gelato fix - and this was one of the real winners of the trip - really good stuff. Which is good, because navigating anywhere in Venice is close to impossible. Streets change names midway, but may not be labeled anyway, and things that look like just the empty space between 2 buildings are really streets that are listed on your map.

A stop back at our hotel (built in 1288), and then it was off for more of the chichetti pre-dinner snacks. Then some exploring, using our vaporetto pass, and finally dinner canal side by the Accademia bridge. Ciao, Venice. Til we meet again.