Venice and its Lagoon – Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice became a major maritime power in the 10th century. The whole city is an extraordinary architectural masterpiece in which even the smallest building contains works by some of the world’s greatest artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and others. There are many islands in the Lagoon and we were lucky to visit three of them, Murano, for the glass making, Burano, for lacemaking and fisherman’s homes, Torcello, where it all started and its magnificent Cathedral. This post focuses on the islands of Murano, which are linked together by bridges. The islands are famous for the manufacturing of Murano Glass, in 1291, the Venetian Republic ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano because the glassworks represented a fire danger in Venice, whose buildings were mostly wooden at the time. We visited a glass factory, and were quite lucky as we had the display all to ourselves and I could take as many photos as I wanted to. We didn’t have enough time to explore the islands as we were packing three island into one day, but we know where to come back to next time. We arrived by water taxi, like a high speed motor boat, not good for me and my fear of small boats, but I made it. Leaving Murano to travel to Torcello was in different kind of craft all together, a flat bottom boat, a little better, although it did bob up and down some what, but I was fine when told, that we could go where the bigger boats couldn’t, because of our flat bottom……and the water was only a metre deep… I felt instantly better and started to enjoy the ride. Following are the photos of the visit, I did find the glass making quite fascinating and took way too many photos.
Passing the Island of San Giorgio
Leaving Venice behind for Murano
Lighthouse on Murano.
Glass blowing on Murano, the glass blower made a vase and small cat for us to see how they were hand made.
After watching the display we made our way in the glass showroom, room after room of wonderful glass. I did buy a small owl and a Christmas tree, but as we were travelling by train and having to manhandle large suite cases, we couldn’t get carried away.
The owner of the glass factory who gave us the tour.
I was quite interested in the glass factory building, it was situated in an old church, nothing left inside apart from the windows, but interesting all the same.
We then bordered our flat bottom boat and chugged off to the Island of Torcell0, which was quite a distance from Murano, but we did pass some interesting islands on the way…..but they are for another day.
October 2016
Echoes of the Past 
Great pictures, Lynne! Murano glass is so beautiful. It’s wonderful that you got to photograph them making things.
Thank you Pat, yes I really enjoyed watching and we were lucky that we were on our own, so I got to take lots of photos 🙂
Love the lighthouse
Thought you might 🙂
That’s a thumbs up from me too, Lynne! Gorgeous shots all, and stand-out for me were your opening shot (sea spray and tower) and the delightful cat in typical ingratiating pose. But they were all wonderful!
Thank you so much, just glad you enjoyed them. How I took that first photo is a miracle, I hate small boats and they were going so fast, but I had to take it, it was too good to miss 🙂 I loved the cat, but it was just a little too expensive to buy, well a lot really, so I had a small owl instead 🙂
Wow, superb! That chandelier! Fabulous pics, Lynne.
Lovely tour! I’ve seen glass blowing before,it is truly an art! Water, boats and a lighthouse….my kind of day! :))
Oh you would have enjoyed it, I loved watching him blow into the glass, I wasn’t sure if they really did it 🙂