Murano Island
I came across these photos tonight and I don't think I've posted them before. They're of the day trip we took out to the island of Murano in the Venice lagoon. If you've already seen them,and there's a high chance you have, well...mi scusi.
Okay, technically this oneis cheating. It's not on Murano, but I love it all the same.
There was fog on the lagoon that morning, so the boat ride out there took a really, really long time. Like two hours from when we left the apartment. Totally worth it. We did get to see some of the lesser traveled canals on this trip at least.
Don't you wish you could go into this house and wander around? Or live there? Such a beauty, this old gal.
By the time we arrived on Murano we were starving, so we grabbed an early lunch. Naturally, Matty has to have his wine or he'll be rather unpleasant. The food was...meh...but the calzone my brother ordered was literally bigger than his leg. No exaggeration. I'm unclear at this point why I don't have a picture of that thing.
It's important to color-coordinate your outfit with the scenery. If had worn red, I would totally have clashed and looked like a fool!
I don't know what the story is here, but they had a lot of these symbols all around this church. We had been joking all week about how it appeared that the dogs and the pigeons in Venice were sworn enemies, and now we find a church where it looks like giant chickens and dogs had some kind of war in the ancient past. Inside the church (sadly, no photos allowed) there was a giant mosaic on the floor of this War of the Chickens and the Dogs. It was weird and awesome, as these kinds of things often are.
This was the bell tower near that church. Inside the church behind the altar was a giant bone at least six feet long. The legend is that a saint slew a dragon, and this was the rib bone from that dragon. A cynical person who isn't me would remark that the bone looked much like a whale bone. The dragon story is WAY COOLER, as you all know.
We walked and walked and walked and walked all over Murano looking for glass blowing demonstrations, but couldn't find anything. I think it was perhaps too early in the season for most of them to be open.
This place was the only one we could find, and it was brand new. The people were very friendly, but my sister-in-law swears up and down there was something else going on. She thinks the place was a front for some kind of shady business because the "owners" were miling around and taking lots of phone calls and were far too well-dressed to look like they owned a factory. I didn't agree with her, but it was an interesting theory.
I bought a couple of items for my Mom here, and just about everything they sold was far out of my price range. Things like this. Beautiful, but expensive.
The walking made us all a little cranky and tired and snippy with each other. Two of the three people in our group may have even stopped speaking to each other briefly (hint: I wasn't involved). Things worked out in the end, and we had a lovely ride back to Venice, and I crashed in the apartment and had a two hour nap. Perfect day.