Work up early this morning so that we could get to the front of the ship to see us arrive in port in Venice. It's a stunning view as you come in and pass by San Marco square. The port is just a bit outside the center of town so you have to ride a water taxi for about 15 minutes. It's not far distance wise but the boat has to go fairly slowly to keep all of its passengers from getting sea sick!
Instead of going into town we went right in to our tour of Murano and Burano. Murano is where they make those gorgeous glass vases, glasses, pitchers...etc. Burano is where they make the handmade lace. I was really excited about that trip.
We toured Murano first. Wow...the demonstration that they did for us was amazing. The glassmaker first made a vase and then a glass horse. He pinched, pulled, rolled, and clamped the ball of fiery glass until it was shaped like a horse on his hind legs. It only took him about 5-6 minutes to do the whole thing!!! Of course after awing us with this performance, they took us rot into the factory to ogle over all the bobbles. They were offering to have pieces signed by the artist who made the particular piece. Audrey wanted something right away, but I was holding her back!!! Lol. Once the guy knew that she was interested he followe us all over the factory and even outside to our water taxi and kept offering us a better price. I told mom that we needed to wait and look in the town. Well....yay for that because a lot of the stuff (of course not the special pieces) could be found in other stores for a better price. I guess we could have gone rounds with this guy, but I wasn't up for it. At the end he even offered to go to his manager to get a better price! It reminded me of buying a car.
Burano was next and it was a treat. Our guide told us a little story as we were cruising into the dock. She said that these women who lived in the Burano in years past had husbands that were fisherman mostly. The story goes that as the men came home, they were very tired and possibly a bit drunk. It was dark and sometimes they would go to the wrong house and sleep with the wrong woman!!! OMG! Anyway, to help with this, they painted their houses all different colors, bright colors, so that it would help the men find their right house. They have kept up this tradition, so it makes for a really cute island.
After docking, we went right to a sweet little old lady's lace shop that had her house in the back. She was delightful! She showed us how they painstakingly go through all the steps to make these intricate lace dresses, napkins and doilies....just to mention a few. Of course since I love handwork, this was my favorite! I would love to have had one of her doilies that was truly all handmade. The one I liked would have fit a small round bedside table. It was a whopping 700€!!!! Tempting but not in the cards. It was still great just to experience the whole thing.
We left Burano and went on to explore a bit around Piazza San Marco and some of the arrow streets that are close by. We were with our Aussie friends so we were lucky to grab a gondola rode for 20€ each. I asked the guy how much and he said 80€. Then I said we had four people and he still let us go for that. Now THAT was a bargain. We didn't get to do the gondola ride last summer when I was there with Ted and the boys. We went on a motorboat ride around the grand canal and that was great also.
We headed back to the ship around 6! We put in a long day and now we have to have all of our luggage outside our door by 11pm. We disembark for good tomorrow at 9am. We will have one night in Venice and then home!!
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