Venice - Saturday 23rd April

Saturday we were woken by church bells and the smell of these sweet Venetian biscuits (baicoli) that they were serving for breakfast downstairs, a great way to wake up! The “Italian” style breakfast that was included with our room consisted of muesli, croissants with apricot filling and weird dry toast crackers with spreads. It was all brown. But it did the trick and Lou got into the Italian spirit and had espressos instead of the usual flat white.

Arty shot with the new camera

Venice is an archipelago if 117 islands, but there are about 7 or 8 that surround the main bit accessible by public transport and we decided to go island hopping to get out of the main centre for a bit. First up was Murano, which is famous for its glass making factories. It is a more chilled out version of the main island, and used to be the island that the rich and famous used to head to, to get away from it all. It has fallen into a bit of disrepair and again full of shops selling glass things. Some of it was really amazing, especially this massive sculpture in a square, see pictured. The oldest Murano glass factory that is still active today is that of Pauly & C. – Compagnia Venezia Murano, founded in 1866.

Yep that's glass people

And that's glass too...

Next we hopped on another ferry to Burano, which is a little island famous for its colourful painted houses and lace work. The houses were really cool, the colours follow a specific system where if someone wishes to paint their home, they must send a request to the government, who will respond by making notice of the certain colours permitted for that lot. Crazy but it works! The lace was a bit ho hum, like Hamish said “who wears lace?”. We shared a nice pizza for lunch. We thought we were doing well on the money side of things until we realised when it says, “cover charge – 2 Euros” that means 2 Euros each.

Some of the thousands of Venetian Masks we saw

Pretty houses

The town square was like any other we had seen apart from the fact that due to the sediment the church steeple was on a very wonky angle! In fact most building and steeples in Venice are on funny angles as the foundations eventually get air in there and rot.

Not so much the right angle there Hamish

Moving on, our final destination was the island of Torcello. This one was a weird one - it is considered the oldest continuously populated region of Venice, and once held the largest population of Venice due to its location and its safe harbours, but now it is like a ghost town due to the harbour becoming a swamp. There is an old church and a few random old sculptures, but that is about it. So we moved on relatively quickly. 

Really old stone chair

Lou's fave flowers we saw all over Venice

We went back to our hotel to put the glad rags on for a night out on the town. On Lou’s request, we visited Harry’s Bar for a world famous Bellini. The story goes that Harry Pickering - a rich, young American had been frequenting Hotel Europa in Venice, where Giuseppe Cipriani was a bartender. When Pickering suddenly stopped coming to the hotel bar, Cipriani asked him why and Pickering explained that he was broke because his family found out his drinking habits and cut him off financially. So Cipriani loaned him 10,000 lire (about $5,000 US). Two years later, Pickering returned to the hotel bar, ordered a drink, and gave Cipriani 50,000 lire in return and said "Mr. Cipriani, thank you, here's the money. And to show you my appreciation, here's 40,000 more, enough to open a bar. We will call it Harry's Bar.”

The Bellini was really really yummy, expensive but yummy – Hamish didn’t order anything. Its too posh to serve beer.

For dinner we headed into the Dorsoduro district to a seafood restaurant that Lou had found recommended on a website - Ristoteca Oniga. We ordered mussels and clams in a garlic tomato sauce that was just delicious and a couple of pasta dishes. The food was really good, the service not so much but we were beginning to understand it is just the Italian way. Thoroughly stuffed we wandered back to our hotel while Hamish played on the night settings of our new camera…a lot.

Highlight #1: Burano, a cute hippie style island that is more residential than touristy. Highlight #2: Fresh pasta!  
Lowlight: Paying 1.50 Euros each to go to the loo and waiting for ages for the ferries and unfortunately Italian service. 
Interesting fact #1: Murano's glassmakers were soon the island’s most prominent citizens. By the 14th century, glass makers were allowed to wear swords, enjoyed immunity from prosecution by the Venetian state and found their daughters married into Venice’s most affluent families. Of course there was a catch: glassmakers weren't allowed to leave the Republic.
Interesting fact #2: Harry's Bar has long been frequented by famous people such as Ernest Hemingway, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Woody Allen and the Bandits!