On our second day in Venice, we decided to spend the first half of the day exploring two of the other islands in the lagoon: Murano and Burano. Murano is famous for hand-blown glass, which was relegated to an island away from Venice due to fear of fires from the extremely hot furnaces required. The other island, Burano, is famous for lace-making and its famous brightly painted houses, which helped the fisherman find their way home in the fog and mist that occasionally envelops the lagoon.
We researched the vaporetto transport, somewhat assisted by the Rick Steves book, but also via talking to actual ticket salespeople. It turned out that vaporetto rides are 7 euros each, or you can purchase a 24 hour pass for 20 euros. We ended up taking 7 rides that day, so it was definitely worth it to get the pass! The vaporettos are essentially floating city buses, which make stops at floating docks all around Venice and the other islands on set routes. They were rather crowded, and we weren't even there at peak season -- I read that during the summer, you frequently have to wait for multiple vaporettos before there is space to board.
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| Sitting in the floating dock, applying sunscreen (Mediterranean sunshine!) |
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| A vaporetto |
Our vaporetto ride to Murano took about 10 minutes, with a quick stop at the cemetery island on the way. [The cemetery island dates from Napoleonic times, when it was decreed that no bodies should be buried in Venice itself due to risk of disease spread on the island.] Once we arrived in Murano, we walked up and down the main canal, which is completely lined with glass shops, furnaces, and cafes. It was fun to window-shop, but we didn't risk taking the toddlers into the glass stores, or to see any glass-blowing demonstrations. Our favorite window displays had big glass "balloon" floating, like a very delicate party. There were a few decorations along the canal made of glass, but not as much as I expected. We did enjoy a good early lunch at a local cafe. The buildings were very pretty, but not nearly as vibrant as the ones we were to see later at Burano.
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| Looking down the main canal of Murano from the vaporetto |
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| Me, Charlotte, Erin, Jerome, and Gus in Murano |
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| Attempt at a family picture |
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| Wandering the main canal of Murano |
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| Glass flowers decorating the outside of one of the furnace buildings |
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| Charlotte made a friend |
After wandering for about an hour, plus eating lunch, we headed back to the vaporetto stop we had originally disembarked from. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that it was a different line that we needed to get to Burano, but it was easily remedied with our 24-hour pass -- we just took the vaporetto to the next stop, then transferred to the correct line! It's about a 30 minute ride from Murano to Burano. We were immediately in awe of the gorgeously colored houses on Burano!
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| Awesome church spire -- leaning at the same angle as the Tower of Pisa! |
We stopped in a local park to let the kiddos work off some energy -- Charlotte was pretty excited to find wild daisies growing in the grass.
We then wandered the streets and canals of Burano, enjoying the colors and seeing the leaning steeple of the local church. We finished off our wanders with some delicious gelato (Charlotte in particular was enamored with that part of the day).
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| Charlotte kind of spoiling the group shot here |
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| We passed a cafe that was having a celebration for (a different) Amanda. Those little bows must have taken forever to peel and stick! |
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| Trying on a Venetian mask |
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| GELATO!!! |
We ended up taking the long way back around Venice (via vaporetto) to Saint Mark's Square, which was scenic but felt a bit tedious by the end. We headed back to the apartment to get the kids some late naps and relax for a bit.
