The Leaning Tower of Burano


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September 9th 2016
Published: June 14th 2017
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Today's destination is two of the islands in the Venice lagoon.

We catch a water bus and head towards the first of these, the island of Murano, which is only about a kilometre north of Venice. It's apparently famous for glass making, which we hear they've been doing here since the 13th century. We're guided into the Guarnieri glass factory, for a glass blowing demonstration. The man at the door asks us where we're from, and then wants to know whether we live in either Wagga Wagga or Tumbarumba. I wonder if the residents of those metropolises realise that they're the subject of Italian humour. We're told that the temperature in the glass furnace is more than a thousand degrees. We're not sure whether this is Celsius or Fahrenheit, but at that heat this would seem to be a bit academic. We watch on as the blower produces a patterned glass jug, probably worth hundreds of dollars, in a few minutes, and he then follows up with a fish and a horse. They all look like masterpieces to us, but when he's finished he casually tosses them all back into the furnace. He then gets a small girl from the audience to blow some glass, and when she's had enough he keeps going until it explodes. If anyone in the audience was asleep they're not now. The factory specialises in chandeliers, and chandeliers of every conceivable shape and colour are on display in the factory's shop. I ask Issy how they get the colour into the glass. She says that they must use coloured sand from the beach. I've seen yellow, black and red sand on beaches, but there are also purple, pink, green and blue glass pieces on display, and I'm not sure I've seen any of those colours on any of the beaches we've been to recently. We're also curious about how they make the parts of the chandeliers all identical if they're all hand made. There don't seem to be too many staff around to ask, so these mysteries remain. Some of the pieces are in the shape of Picasso paintings; Issy says that they should call these Piglassos. She's clearly been hanging around me way too much.

We walk through the back streets of Murano and along a canal lined with glass shops and restaurants. It's much less crowded here than in Venice, but just
Glass blowing demonstration result, MuranoGlass blowing demonstration result, MuranoGlass blowing demonstration result, Murano

This looked like a masterpiece to me and he whipped it up in about two minutes. As soon as the demonstration was over he destroyed it so he could reuse the glass.
as attractive in a different sort of way. We stop in a large square to admire a huge blue glass object covered in hundreds of different blue coloured glass spikes.

We stop for lunch at a restaurant next to one of the canals and get chatting to the Canadian couple on the next table. The look about our age, but they tell us that they've got one great grandchild and are about to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. I wasn't aware you were allowed to get married when you were in primary school. He's been retired for twenty years, and they go on a major trip every year. They also own a motor home which they drive from Canada to Mexico about every second year. Their whole extended family lives in the same small town in Western Canada, and they've have made it a rule that whenever one of their (now six) grandchildren turns thirteen they take them away with them to some exotic destination such as Mexico or Hawaii. They tell us that they came to Australia a couple of years ago, and loved it. They hired a car in Sydney and drove it all the way to Port Douglas. That's impressive. I suspect that most Australians haven't done that drive. We certainly haven't.

We head towards our next stop, the island of Burano, which is about five kilometres further north. This is apparently famous for two things - lace making, and the colour of its houses. The houses are certainly spectacular. They're all painted in different and very bright colours. We read that this originated from the fishermen needing to be able to find their own houses in the fog. Issy's sceptical. She says that surely anyone should be able to identify their own house from a few metres away in daylight, and the bright colours wouldn't help you at night. I wish she hadn't pondered this quite so much; I quite liked the original story. We'd also read that once a family picked a colour for its house, succeeding generations were then committed to maintaining that same hue. I hope they chose carefully. There's a huge range of different colours on display, so the staff at the local paint shop must be kept on their toes.

We spot a very large belltower attached to the island's church, and if we're not very much mistaken it seems to be on a very distinct lean. It's not quite a Leaning Tower of Pisa type lean, but very obvious nonetheless. It looks a lot taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa and there are houses all around it, and if it ever fell over I suspect it would take quite a few of them with it. I wonder whether anyone still lives in any of those houses. We see a painting on a shop wall showing the tower with a much more extreme lean, and three men trying to straighten it by pulling on it with some ropes. I wish them luck with this, but it's nevertheless reassuring to know that at least the locals have noticed that their tower's developed a bit of a slope. We noticed a tower in the middle of Venice the other day that also seemed to be on a bit of a lean, and when we've looked down some of Venice's narrow alleyways, we've noticed that the walls of the buildings seem to be much closer together at the top than they are at the bottom. I hope they don't get too many earthquakes in Venice, or in Burano for that matter. I wonder who decided that it was a good idea to build Venice in a swamp in the first place. It's apparently always been a swamp. I'd assumed it was dry when people first started living here and the ground then sunk over time, but apparently not so. One theory is that they built it there to avoid being attacked by Atilla the Hun. I wonder how Atilla got all the way to Italy without being able to swim; surely he would have had to have crossed at least a few rivers along the way.

We get excellent views across the lagoon to the San Francesco del Deserti Monastery which is on a nearby island.

We return to Venice via the Venice Lido which is one of a few islands separating the lagoon from the sea. We pass the largest of three openings into the lagoon, which is the one that the cruise ships use to get in and out. The lagoon must be quite deep; we passed the massive Queen Elizabeth cruise ship near San Marco a few days ago. We see the first cars we've seen since we arrived in Venice, and read that Venice Lido is the only island in the commune on which cars are allowed.

We dine at a waterfront restaurant near San Marco. The waiter tells us that we can have a romantic table, and then asks us if we want to sit together. I'm a bit confused. I ask Issy why he'd think we might want to sit on separate tables and if he knows something that I don't. I get the look. It seems that all he wanted to know was whether we wanted to sit opposite or next to each other. I'm glad we got that clarified. It's very pleasant, but the noise coming from two water buses moored in front of the restaurant and constantly banging into each other is a bit disconcerting. I'm not sure it can be all that good for them either. Issy says I should stop worrying; she says that all the water buses have got rubber bumpers on them to cushion the blows. I think they might have run out of bumpers when these two were in the shipyard. I hope they don't sink next time they venture out, particularly if we happen to be on them.


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Very important to hang up the washing in size order. I think there may have been some mistakes on the right hand side.


12th September 2016

Beautiful blue glass.....and a good pic of Issy too!

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