Venice - Canals, Bridges and Glass
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
38
52
Trip End
Nov 13, 2008
Venice,
Veneto,
Italy
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My first impression of Venice after alighting from the train was it is hectic, frantic and full of people. My god, it was Sunday, and supposedly off season, yet the queue for the one (yes, one) tourism office in the train station seemed to stretch to the horizon.Shellie and I referred to the trusty LP, which indicated another tourism office should be about 300m over the main canal. Rather than spend our entire time in Venice in a queue we headed off.
This brought us to cross one of the four bridges over the main canal. The LP details three, however another was built and commissioned in 2007/08 (ie. very new) and located quite close to the main train station. Upon reaching the tourism office, buying 12 hours of public transport and a more detailed map, we headed off.
Our day started with a cruise on one of the many "busses" up the main canal. While this is not a gondola (they are very very expensive), it is a great way to get an appreciation of the waterways of Venice, as well as an appreciation of how the city operates. At many times, the traffic on the waterway is quite heavy, various sized boats, gondolas, water taxis etc all competing in terms of direction of travel and also for the tourist dollar. The main canal is just that, the main road through Venice. Once upon it on a boat competing for space, even in a shoulder period (ie quiet) you can imagine what life would be like here during peak tourist period.
We then headed for the island of Marona, famous for its glass manufacturing. It was one of the family glass factories to which we found ourselves drawn. We learnt it takes about 15 years to complete your training and have the experience to be a "master" of glass blowing. Training generally starts at 15 years of age and has no formal "school" component, everything you learn is within the factory. Some pieces are made with one master and up to four apprentices, all working at the same time. Colour is added to the pieces by mixing different minerals with the silica sand (eg. Cobalt for blue) while it is in the furnace. Once melted and formed, pieces are left for one day to cool.
As it was a Sunday the mill was closed. However the resident master was on the premises and, at one stage there was about eight people (including us) in the shop, so he decided to treat us to an impromptu demonstration, creating a glass horse. It was amazing, taking only a matter of minutes to create the piece. We were also fortunate to have one of the sales ladies interpret what the master was saying into English for us.
After the demonstration we proceeded to explore the shop where Shellie fell in love with a particular lampshade; which has become our first heirloom piece :) It is being shipped to us. Interestingly when we mentioned to the lady helping us that we were from Australia she mentioned the family business supplies David Jones!
Subsequent to our visit to the factory we spent several hours exploring the island, walking the streets. The buildings were and interesting mix of old and new. It almost seemed every house had a quarter-acre vegetable patch nearby, growing various fruit and vegetables with large olive of fig trees quite common.
Around 15:30 we decided to head back towards Venice proper, our mission, to cross each of the four bridges across the main canal; attempting to keep away from the main thorough fares as much as possible. The process took about three hours, involving many a narrow pathway and dead-end; a dead-end being where you pop out of an alleyway to find a canal before you with now bridge!
On our way home from Venice on the train, we were treated to a bunch of 40 or so Italian twenty-somethings who must have been on their way home from a fair. One had a guitar and the group as a whole treated the train carriage to various renditions of songs, either western ones (ie. a familiar tune) or local fair; all in Italian of course. It certainly made the trip home interesting.
Tomorrow we are thinking of exploring the region around Verona.
