| Glenn's Venice Journal #2 4-04-02 Well it's Thursday and we plan on visiting Murano, Burano, and Torcello (islands off the coast of Venice). Of course, first things first, off to breakfast. I found this great bakery for great bread. We grabbed a couple of pieces of bread and off we were to catch the water taxi to Murano. We decided to buy a 24 hour pass on the water taxi's. We took the boat around to Ft. Nove and then switched to another boat over to Murano. Murano is famous for glass blowing. The Venetian glass is spectacular in color, design, and craftsmanship. We toured through the Museo Vetrario which shows glass from as early as the 14th century. The workmanship was extraordinary, but well outside of our price range. We then took off to Burano. Burano is well known for it's lace industry. We visited the Museo del Merletto di Burano. Besides displaying lace from many centuries there were also ladies on hand still demonstrating the art of lace manufacturing. No thanks!!! I defintely do not have the patience for that. Burano is also known for it's bright, pastel colored houses. We took a few pictures but are not sure if they will truly show the colors as we witnessed. The lace was also expensive even though Erin managed to purchase a scarf for 18 Euro. By this time it was getting late and we decided to skip on Torcello and head home. We decided to stop in Giudecca, another island off the coast of Venice. We landed on Giudecca and the first thing we ran into was the youth hostel, so we stopped in to take a look and ask questions. This hostel was relatively new and fantastic. For 16 Euro per person per night, including breakfast, we could have stayed there. The only downfall was that the only way to get there was by boat. This would have added to the average daily cost but looked well worth it. We did notice the food as the aroma was sailing our way, and we were a little hungry after a long day of touring. After the gentleman at the counter told us that dinner was only 8 Euro's we were definitely having dinner there. Dinner included bread, rigatoni, chicken or fish, vegetables, and an apple, and 5 Euro's for a bottle of wine we were ready to go (Most meals have been costing 30-40 Euro's for the 2 of us for basically the same menu). We met a nice young lady from Virginia, who was studying in Switzerland, but was in Venice to meet her boyfriend, whom she had not seen in 3 months. (Don't ask, Don't tell!!!) Well, after the visit at the Youth Hostel it ended up being 9:00 p.m. So we decided to just head home. |
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| Burano, famous for making exquisite lace, is also known for its quaint, colorful houses |