Venice – Burano, Saturday 7/19

I’ve been delayed in updating my blog. It was a very busy last week of school; I had to complete my final painting, and it took longer then I expected to get the villa cleaned up and my packing done to leave Corciano. But, more on those things later; back to Venice.

Saturday in Venice I went out early and took morning pictures before breakfast. I caught some people in their homes looking out onto the piazza. I’m hoping these will make nice figure/window/door paintings. I met up with Craig at breakfast and we headed to Burano to take more pictures.

Burano is a nearby island that specializes in handmade lace and colorful buildings. The vaporetto to St. Mark’s Piazza plus a 60-minute ferry ride took longer then our direct taxi ride to Murano the day before. After arriving in Burano, Craig and I looked around a bit in the shops, but found we were hungry from the long journey so we decided to get a bite to eat. We sat down at a nice canal-side bar-trattoria (café) and had a nice lunch of lasagna washing it down with bottle of frizante aqua (soda water). I’ve included a photo of the restaurant. We sat directly behind the sign on the right next to the canal.

After lunch we checked out the lace shops. There were table linens, children’s clothes, novelty items and women’s clothes. There was even a shop that specialized in wedding and formal gowns.

At the end of the main street, I found a shop that had some nice clothes that I like and I tried some things on. There were a number of different outfits I put on and I modeled some of them for Craig as he was interested in buying something similar for his wife. I’m about the size of his wife so that was convenient for him. Trying on clothes in this shop was an unforgettable and delightful experience. The owner/lace-maker simply asked everyone that was inside the shop to leave and closed the shop door; there was no separate fitting room in that small shop. She then helped me in and out of all the things I tried on, buttoning up the back of the blouse as appropriate. After I was in an outfit, I went outside to show Craig. This went on several times until I narrowed down what I wanted to purchase. After bargaining with her, I walked out with a nice tank top and skirt; both were made of stretchy material and had lacework or hand-made lace. It’s hard to describe; but, suffice it to say it was flatteringly fitted (and comfortable) outfit with a lacy, mid-calf length skirt, and a tank-top style top with cleavage and shoulder showing. Hey, this is Italy; low and lacy. Craig liked the top but couldn’t find one in a color he liked for his wife.

After my purchase, Craig and I continued on our photo-shooting tour of the town. Another characteristic of this island were the “pastel” colored buildings. I use the word pastel lightly as some of them were brighter; there were several “Christmas tree” houses of bright red and green; there was a blinding yellow-green house and many other colors.. I found a nice plaque describing a reason behind the colorful town.

Our trip back to Venice was quite an experience. We had just missed the ferry when we got there and had to wait an hour to catch the next one. After the long hour-long ferry ride back we were surprised to end up at a different station in Venice, they emptied the whole ferry and we were forced to take a separate vaporetto back to St. Mark’s Square.


And, it took us six bus-boats before we could get on and back to the main piazza because they were so crowded. We found out later that there was an annual fireworks show that night so everyone was coming into Venice to see it, thus our having to wait so long to get on a boat. That made us late for our 7:00 dinner plans with Jason and those who chose to join him.

After getting back to the hotel, I showered then walked around near our hotel for awhile. I was amazed watching all the hoards of people head towards the water front near our hotel. But, I was tired and I decided not to stay up to watch the fire works. Around 11:00 pm I heard some very loud booming that woke me up. I heard the next day that it Venice fireworks were 100 times better then anything done in the states. Now I regret not getting up to see it.