Burano trumps Murano

Before we left Australia we had booked a tour of the three islands Murano, Burano and Torcello .  Apparently the original Venetians came from a village on the mainland whose two big gates were called Murano and Burano.  After being harassed by barbarians for years the inhabitants moved to the island of Torcelleo to escape.  They thus called the two neighboring Islands after their gates. 

Torcello grew to 20 thousand people but they didn’t build far enough out and so they moved on to where Venice is today building on 117 islands with incredible difficulty.  Torcello today has only 15 inhabitants but a very nice byzantine church.

Burano is famed for its lace work passed down through generations of women while the men were fishermen.  To better make out their homes from a distance they painted their houses bright colours a tradition still followed today.

The Venetians became renowned for their glasswork and in particular for the creation of chandeliers.  But fire is the enemy in Venice and so it wasn’t long till all the glaziers were banned to Murano where today there are many factories.  There are not as many chandeliers nowadays so there are all manner of glass pieces produced including glass beads for jewelry, traditional gold coated glass, vases and modern art designs.  It all looks nice with a light behind it.

The tour took 4 hours and was a typical guided tour except with a boat.  We had 40 mins on each island, which was barely enough time to find the toilet.  On Murano we saw the inside of a glass factory and a glazier doing his work.  This was very cool – he made a vase and a horse figurine in seconds.  But then came to showroom and the hard sell.  We didn’t see anything of the island or its inhabitants.

Burano was much better –same time but it was a walk to the village center – like into the spiders web, we dodged a whole lot of little stores clamoring to get you to buy their lace.  I would have liked a coffee but back to the boat and on to Torcello.

Torcello was a ghost town (island), the only thing left of its past inhabitants is the old byzantine church and a few scattered buildings.  These now sell souvenirs or have been converted to restaurants, I assume for those with boats.

When we arrived back to Venice we were a little disappointed with the tour as it really didn’t give us a feel for the islands.  But then 4 hours had passed and really to spend even an extra hour on each island would have meant a 7 hour day so we figured in the end that the tour was really the best you can do in a day.

If I had it over I would catch the Vaporetto out to Burano and spend a couple of hours and come home.