Venice - Murano

Murano - the first of the Venetian Islands that we visited on the same day.

We booked an organized trip for the Islands, which proved to be a really good idea. We all gathered at a meeting point on the Grand Canal, from there we walked to where our boat was moored and set off across the Lagoon. It took about 30 minutes to get to the Island.

Murano is known as the Glass Island, and the glass produced there is just beautiful. We were treated to this glass blowing demonstration when we left the boat. I had seen glass blowing before but Alice and Joe had not. It is fascinating watching a Master Glass Blower at work. In the photo above the Glassblower is blowing the body of the vase shown below.

The finished vase above, and a rearing horse which the glass blower made in literally 90 seconds! That is what you call skill. We all very much enjoyed the display and the visit to the Glass Factory afterwards :)

We then made our way to the main canal, and browsed the lovely shops.

We didn't have a lot of time before we re-joined the boat, but really enjoyed the stroll along the canal :)

As you can see the weather was beautiful :)

It is lovely seeing boats, not cars!

We wandered through the square, then made our way back to the boat. 

As we left Murano Harbour we saw this lovely lighthouse.

A few more views of Murano, taken from the boat. We managed to get a seat outside on the upper deck of the boat for this part of the journey.

Leaving Murano behind us, we were off to Burano next :) 

Venice - meanderings

As mentioned in the last blog, we decided to just wander around and see what we could find. We found a lot of Canals, but they are so pretty we all took lots of photos :)

I have no idea where any of these canals are, we just crossed bridges and went where we felt like!

We didn't go on a Gondola but we saw plenty of them :)

This one has a canal name, the building on the right turned out to be the Opera House, La Gran Teatro La Fenice.

The Gran Teatro La Fenice from the front. This is a world famous Opera House, we didn't go inside but there are plenty of photos of the interior on the internet. 

This lovely sign was round the back of the building. La Fenice means The Phoenix. The sign looks very old but that might not be true as the building was destroyed by fire in 1996 for the third time in its history, leaving only the exterior walls (and this sign?)  intact. The Teatro was rebuilt and re-opened in 2004.

This is a lovely Hotel near to the Teatro, my daughter spent a night here after my son and I flew home, as she stayed in Italy visiting friends.

Lovely canals and amazing buildings.

Pretty bridges everywhere too.

Love the Gondola's :)

We finally found ourselves back in St Mark's Square, It was a shame that the front of The Basilica was covered, but I am sure the repairs being done were very necessary.

The four horses captured from Constantinople in 1204. These horses are actually replicas, but we had the chance to see the originals later in the week. More about them in a later blog :)

Everywhere you turned there were opportunities for amazing photos :)

We didn't see many cats, but this one lives in a Stationery shop near where we were staying.

Beautiful buildings.

The bridge in this photo is the famous Bridge of Sighs, the building on the right is the Doge's Palace. We visited the palace on our last day, more of that in a later blog.

We had a lovely time just wandering round the Calli's 

Our lovely daughter tracked down and booked a boat trip to the Islands for the following day, the next blogs will be about them :)

Venice - our first full day

A golden sea horse decoration on a Gondola.

The view from our bedroom window :)

We had booked into a glass making experience at 10.00 so we got ourselves ready in good time so we could find where we had to go. I had to take the odd photo or two on the way..... 

About 5 minutes walk from our accommodation we found ourselves in St Mark's Square, what an amazing sight! As it was early there weren't too many people about, and much to our surprise HIM's Wicked Game was playing full blast from the stage that can be seen on the left of the photo. As I really like HIM's music I thoroughly enjoyed it!! We found out a couple of days later that the Square was used for a Graduation Ceremony, what an amazing place for such a ceremony. 

There will be a lot more about St. Mark's Square in a later blog :)

Pretty canals everywhere :)

We found the address and had a very enjoyable 2 hours making our own glass momentos of our visit

I made a glass 'penny' and a black cat

The caterpillar was made by my son, my little black cat even has whiskers, but I forgot to give him eyes...

at least he has ears and a nose!!! We all thoroughly enjoyed our time and I am proud of my little cat :)

After our glass making event we found a lovely restaurant in a nearby square. We had a leisurely lunch enjoying the food and sun while we decided what to do next. We had intended to travel to one of the Islands but decided to have the afternoon just wandering through the streets and alleyways, and leave the islands until the following day.

One of the many alleyways in the city.

The afternoon meanderings will be in the next blog :)

Venice - at last :)

I have always wanted to visit Venice, my two children have said for years that one day they would take me there. The one day finally came at the beginning of May :) We had a totally amazing time, Venice was everything I thought it would be and more. This is the first of a series of blogs that I will share, I hope it won't get boring!

The Alps, photo taken from the plane on the journey out to Venice.

The Rialto Bridge, our first proper sight of this beautiful city.

Amazing architecture everywhere you look.

A beautiful White Egret perched on boats on the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal looking lovely in the sun.

The first of very many very photographic canals that we saw.

We had rented an Airbnb so we set off with our suitcases, over the Rialto Bridge. We got lost, but we found this lovely square with a very inviting Restaurant in the corner, so we stopped and enjoyed our first Italian meal, and a few drinks to give us strength to carry on to our Airbnb. The food was just amazing, just what we needed. Suitably refreshed we carried on looking for our accomodation.

Part of the gorgeous Church in the Square.

Back the way we had come, but it was fine, we loved the street scenes we saw.

Back over the Rialto Bridge at dusk, and on to our Airbnb, which was half way between the bridge and St. Mark's Square. 

More adventures to come soon :)