Glass & Cute Coloured Houses
Trip Start
Apr 12, 2008
1
12
54
Trip End
Jun 18, 2008
Venice,
Italy
Thursday, April 24, 2008
- Heaps big breakfast served at the B&B... yays, a proper brekky!
- Visited the St Marks basilica... a church that is filled with valuable relics that were all pilfered... way to go! Even the remains of St Mark was actually pilfered from Egypt which was occupied by muslims at the time.
- Had time to kill, so we caught a vaporetto to Murano. Murano is a small island to the North East of Venice and is (apparently) well known for its glass blowing, which I didn't see much of but I saw plenty of coloured blown glass stuff for sale. Lang went nuts and went to every single store while I wandered around looking for some good souvenirs
- We then visited Burano which is another island slightly further out
A huge breakfast
. This island is well known for its brightly painted houses (makes it look like pixieland) and its lace. - Had a "proper" dinner at a restaurant... once again I had the lasagna (my fav dish) and Lang had pasta of the day which was funnily enough Pasta with Salmon.
- Went back to Saint Marks square again for the bands again. Highlights this time around include a snippet from all the Sound of Music songs and "New York New York".
< Lang's extended version>
Breakfast was served at 8.30am this morning and the spread included 2 huge pots of coffee, juice, bread, butter, jam, yoghurt, croissants and cake - it was enough for breakfast and lunch, almost..
After breakfast, we headed back out to St. Mark's Square, checked our bags in and then waited about 30 minutes in line to get into the Basilica. Basically the whole basilica was constructed out of looted goods, even St. Mark's remains were stolen by two merchant butchers in Egypt, and then taken here in AD830.
Inside, the room was decorated by gold mosaics and coloured marble, portraying the story of Christ
Fish in Glass
. On the balcony, overlooking the square, stood 4 bronzed horses.. The Venetians stole them from their fellow Christians and then Napoleon stole them when they conquered Venice in 1797, and then they were later returned. Anyway, it was back to the train station after that to book our onward journey to Florence on the 25th. We had wanted to leave early, but being a public holiday here on Friday all the early trains were fully booked, leaving us no option but to catch the 12.43pm train out of here.. At least it was a direct train and costs the same price - 34 Euros each.
Our next plan for today was to catch the vaporetto to Murano - this island is famous for its glassware. Everywhere around Venice, you see big and small statues and jewelry made of beautiful and colourful glass. Of course it was expensive, but hey, you've gotta get something, right? =P
When we arrived, pretty much the whole island had shop after shop selling these intricate glass ornaments, so I went to check them out much to Brian's disgust.. But I reckon he was secretly interested in getting something himself.. Well, he had been eyeing this fish inside a glass design for quite some time, so yes, he did eventually get something along those lines.
Dog Dog climbing the 'glass art'
. After about 2 hours of looking around and spending more than we had anticipated, we decided to head to another little island, this one was called Burano. This island was famous for its lacework and also their painted coloured houses. It was just so cute! I took so many photos of them - there were pastel and bold blues, purples, yellows, reds, pink, orange... The locals probably think we're weird for finding this fascinating as it's just everyday life for them..
We strolled around for another couple of hours and then took the vaporetto back to our B&B for a short rest.
Later that night, we went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet guide called Vino Vino.. Once again, Brian ordered a lasagna, and I ordered the pasta of the day, which just so happened to be pasta with salmon again, not that I minded a bit. It was creamy and delicious!
We then strolled back to St. Mark's Square for another night of listening to the dueling orchestras. To our delight, one of the groups started to play the whole "Sound of Music" ensemble and also "New York, New York".. The crowd loved it, including us.. =)
