Day 5 - Venice


Today we decided to head off to the islands of San Michelle to view Venice's cemetery, Murano- famous for glass blowing, and Burano- famous for its lace and brightly colored homes. 

The cemetery was very beautiful and peaceful.  It is on an island separate from Venice because back when Napoleon ruled the area, he declared that dead bodies caused disease and that they were not to be buried on Venice.  Some of the areas are quite unusual as most people are buried above ground.  People place small little bouquets in a holder on the front of the crypt and most of the crypts have a picture of the person buried within. 

Then it was on to Murano, the home of the famous Murano glass.   What a joy walking along the canals, looking in all the shops.  Such beautiful pieces!   We wandered in and out of the shops waiting for a piece to speak to us and say take us home…and it did.  In fact, three of them did.  We purchased hand-blown glass shades for the pendant lights over our counter.  Yes, they were expensive, but we will look at them everyday and remember this wonderful trip.  And, no, I never even thought to take a picture of them, so you will need to come to our house to see them!

 

After Murano, we took the vaporetto over to Burano, about a 30 minute ride.  Burano is so, so pretty with every house painted a different color.  It is said that since it is a fishing village, the fisherman painted their homes a bright color so that they could see their house from the water.  Don’t know if it is true, but these houses are sure easy to see!!   We loved just walking around the little canals and, of course, found a great little place to eat lunch…a nice Panini and a sandwich with a beer and glass of wine, sitting at a table outside watching the world go by.   Lunch back home is going to be pretty boring after this trip.  Hey, maybe I’ll put a little table and umbrella out in the driveway and eat my lunch out there!!!

I do have to say that Venice and the surrounding area are incredibly crowded.  It is difficult to find a seat on the vaparettos as there are so many people visiting and they pack the people in like sardines.  We stood for the trips to Murano, Burano and back today and our feet are really complaining L  I hear that St. Marks Square was a zoo today with eight cruise ships in port.  So glad we weren’t over there.

We met our friends Lynne & Jim for cocktails in the hotel garden this evening and then headed out to another little restaurant tucked away on a small calle for some more delicious pasta.  Bill is in his glory having pasta every night!!  This was our last dinner in Venice as tomorrow night we will eat on the ship.

Excited to get on the Ruby Princess tomorrow as we have not yet been on this particular ship.   And, finally we can unpack for a while.   

Unfortunately, while being on the ship will be great, we will no longer have unlimited WiFi.  I will continue my blog each day, but there won’t be many pictures.  Ciao for today!