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| Lots of small dogs as pets in Italy - but no parks! Watch what you're stepping in! |
| Erin's Venice Journal #4 4-04-02 Thursday we planned to rise early, but once again got a late start due in part to laziness and in part to the 3-person wait for the shower. It was pretty windy out, and I worried about Glenn a bit, since he said he doesn't do so well on rough water, but we hit the ferry out to the islands anyway and had no problems. The first island we visited was Murano, world-famous for its glass-blowing factories. Sure enough, every shop on the island sold glass in every shape and color, and several of the pieces were very desirable. Venice has been tempting me with all kinds of things I'd like to take home, but there were a few vases and things that I would've certainly picked up if I was insanely rich! Oh well...next lifetime maybe. Anyway, we made it to the glass museum and found some amazing specimens of glass vials, jars, vases and plates from the 1st and 2nd centuries that were every bit as delicate and lovely as some made in the past few decades! After about an hour there and an hour of shopping, we boarded another boat to Burano, another local island, which is famous for its lace production. There were some fabulous sheets, blouses, towels, and table dressings of all shapes with delicate, fine lace or grandiose large designs. All of it was too expensive for me, but luckily I'm not much of a lacy dresser. There was one silk blouse which really tempted me, but they didn't have it in my size (luckily!). Don't worry, I did find a few little things on both islands - it's not every day we get to Venice! After Burano, it was getting late again, and we wanted to take advantage of our 24-hour boat passes, so we got on another ferry and took the long way around the islands to hit Guideca, the island just south of Venice. We walked a short way along the waterfront before finding one of the hostels we'd seen in our city info, and went in to see what the dormitories looked like and how the interior compared to our current lodgings, so in the next city we could give hostels a try. We found it very warm and inviting, and will make a concerted effort to find a hostel in Bologna, our next stop. The thing we miss out on in a hotel is the interaction with other travelers, which is very available in a hostel. After checking the place out, we decided to stay for dinner (also a good deal), and met up with another American, Amy, who is on an exchange program with her school, VA Tech, in Switzerland. We had dinner together and chatted about all the places she's seen while here, and the things we've been planning to do while we're out. It was great, and by the time dinner was over we'd made a new friend. We said goodbye and headed out to the boats, as it was after 9pm and we were getting tired. We took the ferry the long way through Venice so we'd get to see the town again at night, and finally got back to our room for a satisfied night's sleep. |