Today was a day for exploration. We got up early for another wander on San Marco and to find breakfast. We found a really nice bakery (so nice that we went back the next day too), and then headed back to our room to get ready for a ferry boat tour. Everyone knows that Venice sits on islands that are low in the water. Some people don’t realise though that the water is tidal and at high tide the water level rises, flooding parts of the city.
Our meanderings the night before came in handy this morning as we knew how to manoeuvre around the rising water (in the areas where duckboards were not provided). Many tourists were being caught by touts selling thin, plastic bag over-booties. These were only effective for those moving slowly through the water and we saw more than a few with wet pants and presumably wet shoes too.
We made our way to the dock for our journey out to Murano, Burano and Torcello. Each of these islands are known for their own speciality.
Murano
Murano is known for it’s glass artisans. Galileo is known to have come to Venice specifically to obtain the finest glass lenses available in order to improve his telescope. Local lore says that Venice city leaders were so worried about the risk of fire from glass furnaces that they decreed that all glass production should be moved to a separate island – Murano.
We took a ferry ride out to the island where we were deposited at a glass-blowing studio. Settling in for what we hoped would be an interesting demonstration and discussion of glass-blowing we were disappointed after less than 5 minutes of making a prancing horse with little explanation.
We did buy some small glass presents (the glass pieces made here really are amazing), before a short walk and a rush back to the ferry to head to Burano.
Burano
Burano has long been known for hand-made lace, although it seems that little or no handmade production goes on these days. Instead, the island is perhaps now better known as a photographers paradise with the multi-coloured buildings creating a kaleidoscope everywhere you look. We had some lunch her, took lots of photos and had a bit of fun laughing and dancing our way back to the ferry.
Torcello
The last island we visited was Torcello. After getting off the ferry we took a short walk along a narrow canal to visit the small town and church. Very picturesque but given the limited time available we chose to stay outside rather than paying money to enter the church with no time to properly look around.
We caught the ferry back to San Marco, and feeling a little peckish we all decided that a warm drink and something yummy was definitely on the agenda. Following a few back streets to a shop we had found the day before we settled in with the locals (not a tourist in site) before heading back to the hotel for some downtime and blogging. They had the most amazing pralines and chocolates – we felt that they looked like galaxies.
At dinner time we once again wandered the streets looking for somewhere to eat – particularly somewhere without pushy touts out the front harassing us. After a time that Hamish thinks was measured in hours (he was “starving”) we finally settled on a place. We knew almost as soon as we entered that we’d made a mistake, but too lazy to get up we had a mediocre meal that, if nothing else, filled our tummies. It can not have been too bad though as we still had our smiles.
Needing to walk off dinner, we first set off to find a laundromat that Megan had found on a map. The further we went the darker and smaller the alleyways got. We were never “lost” but equally there were times when we were not certain that our location had any bearing on the map. Just as Megan and Hamish were beginning to get titchy and thinking about turning around, we found our goal – a lovely big laundromat which would be our first stop (after breakfast) tomorrow.
Needing to boost our navigational confidence we set course for the Piazza San Marco, keen to see the Basilica at night and also wondering what the giant Christmas tree would look like.
