Travel-Lens

Day 7-11

July 26-30

Venezia, Murano, Italia

 

            A year ago I was walking the main waterfront near the Piazza St. Marco in Venezia, Italia with my girlfriend when a lone messenger approached us. An elderly gentleman with a particular ease about him that he just looked relaxed with his Italian loafers, white slacks, and pinstriped shirt.  Through the smoke of his cigar he asked us if we wanted to see Murano. “It’s possible”, I said, acting like I knew where he was talking about.  “Come on”, he said.  “We give you free boat ride”. We jumped into the Venetian speedboat and melted to the bright yellow leather seats in the sun. We watched as the familiar sights of the piazza got smaller and smaller on the horizon and we soon entered open water. 

            There were several men, all dressed like the first, waiting for us at a dock in Murano to take us into the Glass Factory.  You see, Murano is known; as all areas in Italia are know for something, for glass blowing.  They have been blowing and working glass in Murano for more than a thousand years. 

            After a simple tour of their factory and watching them blow the typical examples and prodding us to buy whatever we could, we left the factory to explore this little island and see what it had to offer.  We soon found that is was a needle in the haystack for tourists.  It has become a standard stop of mine and of Travel-Lens.  I will bring people here for as long as they let me through the front door.  Life on Murano is simple.  I don’t know what people other than the merchants of the storefronts and cafes do but it seems like everyone is unemployed.  All day long the inhabitants are walking around, stopping at each café to have a drink, talking with those who walk by, yelling at the few boats that float through the island on one of the canals or inviting the pilot of the boat to stop for a drink.  The interesting thing about Murano in regards to tourists is that they all leave at five in the evening.  They came ashore with tour boats, or by one of those guys that brought me and leave to go back to Venezia because that’s where they are staying.  They only came to Murano to shop. 

            Most of the canals are just twenty feet wide.  The Grande Canale, where most of the tourists end up and most of the shops happen to be, reminds me of The Pirates of The Caribbean at Disneyland.  The people are so close to the boats as they float by that one may even reach out and touch them.  There are so many things to see, hear and watch as an on-looker.  You absolutely forget that there isn’t one car on these islands. The sounds that normally flood your eardrums are replaced with people’s shoes clattering down stone pathways, dogs barking from blocks away, or the boat’s engines bubbling under water as they are thrown in reverse to park.

            So for the last two days we have done nothing but walk, talk, drink and eat like a local.  The locals say that Murano is very much Venetian. They say that it’s more than Venetian than Venice is anymore. The people here are true Venetian, not emigrants.  They are third, fourth and fifth generation; doing the same as their ancestors did. So we have done nothing but enjoyed ourselves for the last two days and relaxed.  We enjoyed ourselves so much that we changed our plans from staying at a hotel in Venice to just staying in Murano for another two nights.  It’s just wonderful.