Venice, Murano, Burano

 Rough start to the contract.  Always is- stuck on the ship for most of the first 2 weeks doing safety training.  Not to mention it was cold and rainy the entire first cruise.  We have finally returned to the beautiful Med weather which is excellent considering I only packed shorts and t-shirts.  There was nothing to write home about so I haven't until now.

Our overnights in Venice totally made up for it!  First headed out to Burano the island of lace.  Hard for me to admit but this was the first public transit system that actually confused the living hell out of me and I still after 3 days there cannot get my bearings.  The water taxis come often and they are fun to ride on but loud!  Sounds like they are crushing concrete underneath the water.  Amazing to be in a city with absolutely no cars what so ever.  Everyone uses rolling carts for groceries and whatnot even on and off the water taxis.  

Burano is cute and clean and as you can see the buildings are brightly colored.  There is also a printed fabric curtain in the house doorways.  I have yet to figure out what that is for.  I hear the old Italian men would come home late at night and when they were quite inebriated the brightly colored houses with distinct doorway fabric would help them figure out which house was theirs.  I will keep that in mind for future house decisions.  

Lots of stores selling lace, gaudy venetian masks and trinkets.  Tiny, tiny island that we explored quickly.  A lot less crowded than Venice and Murano.

Ahhh...Murano.  I was in heaven.  It shuts down early like 5.  The factories and glass shops close at 4 even.  And we don't get into port until 2pm.  So we have to rush around to check out galleries and what not.  The second trip into Murano Brendan and Alex and I went straight to Carlo Dona's.  Walking into glassblower paradise.  Roberto his son speaks english and he was super friendly, gave us a good deal on tools.  Carlo Dona is the only tool maker left on Murano basically.  You think you are about to walk into someone's house when you ring the doorbell, but as the door opens you see a front room with walls full of tools and the metal shop in the back.  I had been talking about getting a raspberry stamp for weeks.  So glad to get one and to dig through all of the other cool crimps that were there.

Only in Murano is there a dollar glass store.  Seriously!

Drawer of glass stamps to rifle through.  The ones on the far right create the raspberry print for all of you non-glassies out there.  Doesn't look like a very exciting tool but they cost 80E.

Venice by day, a view from our sail in.  We get in at 2pm day one and leave 2pm day two so we get this great daytime view.

The first night we were there Venice flooded.  And I mean flooded.  Alarms are going off on buildings.  Vendors were making a killing running around selling galoshes.  Ironically they were not wearing any themselves.  I could not be bothered wearing them.  We hung out in Piazza San Marco.  It actually looked beautiful at night lit and water knee high.  See photo below.  These guys were just chillin in some outdoor seating just enjoying the chaos.

So Brendan and Catherine had stumbled upon a great restaurant on Murano.  When you see a maestro that you know sitting outside having a smoke and a glass of wine there's a good chance it's a local favorite and a reputable place.  They took me back there with them my first Venice trip.  Delicious!  I had the gnocchi but made sure to try the squid ink pasta.  Finish it off with some lemon meringue.  It's a family business: one husband is the bartender, one wife the cook, the other the pastry chef and the other husband the host.  Acqua Stanca Osteria : Wonderfully run, fantastic food.  We ask for the bill and got into conversation about why 3 Americans come here every 12 days.  Turns out the other family business is a glass studio.  The owner is a glass maker of course and the family brand is NasonMoretti.  He was so pleased to meet us and find out that we work for Corning.  He introduces us to the man sitting at the table next to us who is the youngest maestro on the island of Murano.  Then he takes us two doors down to his storefront and shows us his glassware.  NasonMoretti specializes in drinkware and they were being displayed in elite haute couture shops in Piazza San Marco for the 55th Venice Biennale.  What a cool experience!!  We promised to come back while the hot shop was going during the day.

An afternoon spritz @ Acqua Stanca

So on our second Venice we had to celebrate Riley's birthday he is one of the A Capella boys.  An absolutely wild overnight in Venice.  Great bars, great interactions with other tourists, stayed overnight in a hotel with a beautiful canal view.  The boys couldn't help but to bust out into song in the middle of a square full of restaurants and bars.  They certainly put on a show but the bar owner looked less than pleased but they had their audience cheering!  Ahh...can't wait to go back to Venice!