A journey of discovery through the landscapes, art, food, and people of Italy
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Day 6: Venice and Burano
I've always heard that if you really want to experience the beauty and grace of Venice you need to get up early when it was still quiet, so this was our number one goal for today. And boy were they right! Venice is just lovely in the morning, when the water is misty and the streets are quiet and you can watch the locals deliver goods by boat. It was hard not to love the city as you watched it quietly prepare for the hectic day ahead. We had a wonderful morning of wandering around and snapping photos of architectural details that caught our eye before returning to join our group for our walking tour of the city.
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After breakfast we met our local guide, Elizabeta. She was a funny, fiery, passionate Venetian who obviously loved her city. We learned so much about the local climate of the city including their love/hate relationship with tourists. We got to experience a gondola taxi - the locals use them to quickly cross the canals rather than taking the long walk around or getting on the vaparetto. She brought us to a shop where artisans still make the forculas, or oar rests, for the gondolas. We learned so much about how the gondola is designed and how someone comes to be a gondolier. It was fascinating! We finished up our walking tour with a trip to St. Marks. It is hard to describe this cathedral - everything about it takes my breath away. Everything glitters and it covered in golden mosaics. We were astounded. To me, this was the most beautiful church of the trip! You can see photos of our walking tour below.
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I don't think that with one full day in Venice, most people wouldn't recommend leaving the main island, but I have dreamed about going to Burano since I got interested in photography, so we grabbed a quick (and delicious!) sandwich to eat on the go and hit the vaparetto. It is a bit time consuming to get out to Murano and Burano - we spent over 2 hours round trip getting out there and only a short time on each island, but I loved it and wouldn't have done anything differently. It helped that Donald told us the Doge's Palace was having special evening hours, so we knew we could do that later so we didn't have to choose. Burano is just a feast for the eyes! So colorful and quaint with fishermen cleaning their nets and locals hanging out their laundry. We didn't know where to look!
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When we arrived back in Venice, we went to the Museo Correr in St. Mark's Square to purchase tickets for the Doge's Palace tonight. Donald recommended this as a way to skip lines, and because it is a combination ticket, we snuck a peak at some of the opulent rooms in the Corner museum. Time well spent! We popped into a few shops, including a really beautiful mask shop, on our way to the bell tower in St. Mark's Square. We rode the elevator to the top just in time to see sunset, and it was beautiful! We finished up the night with a late tour of the Doge's Palace, and while the lighting made it difficult to take pictures, being entirely alone in such an amazing (and normally crowded) site made up for that! We loved Venice and would be sad to leave, but not for long, because Florence is up next!