Venice- August 1, 2024

Last updated on September 20th, 2024 at 08:18 pm

[This is a rough draft to get started. We’ve done a lot of traveling so far, and are behind in sleep, so we’ll keep this updated as we have a chance. When this isn’t here anymore, you’ll know that we’re finished with the page!]

Table of Contents

Photos from Venice – Day 2

Video from Venice – Day 2

We ate breakfast on the street level terrace outside the Hotel Rialto. Part of the restaurant was set aside for hotel guests for breakfast. There was a good assortment of hot and cold breakfast items served buffet style. The street outside the Hotel Rialto was busy with pedestrians, tourists and workers unloading produce and other goods from boats docked at the pier. The items were unloaded from the boats on to flatbed hand carts the men would then pull through the small streets of Venice. The carts were stacked pretty high with goods.

At the hotel reception desk we saw a sign offering a tour of a Murano glass factory. Visiting the islands of Murano and Burano was on our agenda for today, so we ask for more information. The local chamber of commerce was offering these tours as a way to increase the number of people visiting the glass factories. The factory sent a water taxi to our hotel to pick us up and transport us to the glass factory. We were responsible to find our own way back. We knew there was a vaporetto, or water bus, stop a few meters down the street from our hotel, so that was how we had planned to visit Murano. We decided to take advantage of the offered tour.

The Doge decreed in 1291 that all glass furnaces be moved from Venice to Murano, so nobody could steal the knowledge and technique of the art. The supposed reason was to prevent fires in Venice, but in 1295 the passing of a more restrictive law forbidding the glassmakers of Murano from leaving the island of Murano revealed their true motives.

The water taxi took us to the CAM art glass furnace and showroom on Murano Island. Our water taxi was met by a distinguished looking gentleman named David. He first took us to the furnace room for a demonstration of glass blowing. A young woman apprentice made a small glass pitcher and a small glass horse standing on its hind legs. Both were very impressive. We learned August was typically the month the glass blowers took for vacation so not many were around.

After the demonstration, David took us to the CAM showroom, which was a combination of museum and showroom with at least 10 rooms displaying every kind of glass imaginable. We saw a life size colorful clown, a man-size horse standing on its hind legs, intricate chandeliers, vases, bowls, stemware, jewelry and much more. There was every imaginable color, size shape and pattern. We were intrigued by various sizes of glass fish aquariums with glass fish and plants. Check out CAM’s website for a taste of what we saw: https://www.camvetri.com/en/index.php We learned from David that not all glass advertised as Murano glass was made by hand at the glass furnaces on Murano. If a company purchases the combination of sand, soda and ash used to make Murano glass, they are able to advertise it as Murano glass.

We were interested in purchasing a glass piece. Joyce did a quick internet search to find information about the company and we were convinced they were legitimate. After much consideration, we decided on a heavy leaded glass vase with vivid cobalt blue and clear glass. Joyce also found some earrings she liked. We made arrangements for the piece to be shipped to us after we returned home.

After our purchase, the CAM water taxi took us to the Vaporetto stop on Murano. There we were able to purchase Vaporetto (water bus) tickets. We opted for a two day pass for each of us. Soon the vaporetto headed to Burano Island came to the stop and we boarded. The vaporetto was hot and very crowded. We managed to find a seat. The Venice lagoon is a larger body of water than the Grand canal. The water was choppier, but the vaporetto handled it well. In about 50 minutes we arrived to Burano. Burano is a smaller island than Murano. Burano also has small streets, small squares and small canals transecting the island. The houses are colorfully painted with small shops selling souvenirs, clothing and a wide variety of lace items.

We walked down the street from the vaporetto dock, window shopping and came to a wider area with intersecting streets, and canals with boats tied on both sides a few bridges allowing for walking up and over the canals. We turned and walked to the end of the next street which ended at the water on the other side of the island. We walked back on the opposite side of the street and over one of the bridges. Off to one side of one of the squares was the Church of San Martino, dedicated to Saint Martin Bishop, dating to the 16th century and one of the oldest building on Burano. The bell tower has a pronounced tilt. This is due to the unstable subsoil of the island, which has caused the foundation of the tower to sink over the centuries. Despite its precarious angle, the tower still tolls the hours for the island’s inhabitants. Inside the church is very peaceful, serene. The ornate ceiling included many paintings, the most prized is the painting ‘The Crucifixion’ by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, an acclaimed Venetian painter.

We walked back toward the Vaporetto dock admiring the houses and making a few souvenir purchases. We boarded the Vaporetto and rode about an hour back to Venice, getting off at Fondamente Nove, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel through a part of Venice we had yet to see.

We took an afternoon nap to refresh us for our evening tour, The Real Venice. We decided to leave a little early and eat dinner near Hotel Antiche Figure which was the 6 pm meeting place for our tour. We took the Vaporetto to Ferrovia stop, at the train station, crossed a bridge and found Hotel Antich Figure. Now to find a place for dinner. We found an interesting pizza place but their kitchen wasn’t open as it was too early for Italian dinner. Close by was Cafe Vero, so we settled for a quick bite. We shared a piece of pizza with 2 Coke Zeroes. We walked around waiting for tour to begin, walking through a Burger King, just for the experience.

The Real Venice Tour was a small group of 8 – a family of 4 from Mexico, a couple of Philadelphia, ourselves and a local, delightful young woman guide. We walked through small uncrowded streets, up and down small bridges over small canals, looking at historic homes. We stopped in a lovely park with a playground and a dog park. The park was near our guide’s multi-language high school that included preparation for working in the tour industry. We walked through 3 sections of the Jewish ghetto where Jewish people were forced to live as early as the 16th century. They could leave during the day, but were gated in at night. The Venetian Ghetto was the first to be legally established in the world, and the word ghetto, which predated the residential segregation, was connected to the iron foundries that previously operated in the district. The ghetto continues as the center for Jewish life in Venice with 5 synagogues. In 1938 there were about 2000 Jews in Venice, some escaped to Allied held southern Italy and some to Switzerland. About 250 were arrested and deported with fewer than 10 surviving the death camps. We saw the golden stumbling stones commemorating them outside their previous residences. As we walked, the sun set and the evening cooled with a lovely breeze. It was cloudy and thunder and lightning could be heard and seen in the distance. We felt a few raindrops, but the rain held off until we returned to the hotel.

Viking video about Venice’s boats

Venitian Lagoon video from Viking