Advertisement
Published: April 13th 2009
Edit Blog Post
So Hillary and I went on to Venice from Milan and stayed in a bed and breakfast set somewhat into the city. Now, I can't remember if I've told you about the streets of Venice before but I think that hedge mazes were modeled after Venetian streets. They twist and turn and sometimes have street names...not that it matters because since there are no roads they're no narrow and packed together you can't see all of them on a map anyways. Our B&B owner told us to call when we arrived at the train station and then told us which vaporetto (water bus) stop to get off at and he would meet us there. He walked us back to the B&B giving us directions along the way so we could find it on our own and then gave us a map with the route clearly marked when we got to the B&B. It's amazing, and those of you that know about my utter lack of direction understand why it's so amazing, but we didn't get lost at all going to and from the B&B! I know...you don't believe it but it's true 😊
Hillary and I spent time just walking
around eating and shopping. I, of course, fed the birds at Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) again and bought a Murano glass necklace at Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge). One morning while eating breakfast our B&B owners recommended that we take the vaporetto out to Burano. There are a couple of little islands that are still part of Venice but not connected to the main island. Burano is one of those. It's an unusual place for a couple of reasons. First of all, it has grass. Venice, for the most part, doesn't have a blade of grass in sight. It's all cobblestone and water. Secondly, all of the buildings on Burano are painted different colors. According to our B&B owner, it was originally a fishing village and the fisherman wanted to be able to tell which house was theirs when they were out at sea so they all painted their houses different colors. The effect is wonderful. I'm so glad that we went out there for the day...it was a very relaxing day and a beautiful place. While Murano, another island, is famous for its hand-blown glass, Burano has its lace. There were lace tablecloths, handkerchiefs, shawls, dresses, and
anything else that could have lace on it or be made out of lace. I had a wonderful conversation with a little old Italian woman who looked to be about 90 years old. She didn't speak any English and my Italian isn't much beyond "please", "thank you", and "where's the bathroom?" lol but somehow we managed to get by. I had to check my little Italian phrase book a few times (I'm telling you...NEVER travel to a foreign country without one! Sometimes you absolutely can't get by on English and, even if you can, the local people are much nicer to you when you make an effort to speak the language) but primarily she spoke Italian and I spoke English and we just gestured a lot 😊
We stayed in Venice until Monday when we took the train back into Milan so we could catch our bus to the airport. I think we paid more for the train tickets than we did for the flight but that almost goes without saying considering the low price we were able to find. You have to love RyanAir 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0514s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb