Murano and San Giorgio Maggiore

On Sunday, August 19th, we slept a little later than we had the day before.  When we went up to breakfast, Marco wasn't there.  Instead, we were served by an older woman.  We later learned that Marco was away, visiting his in-laws, and this lady would be in complete charge of the B&B for the next few days.

Among the other guests at breakfast we met a mother and daughter from Vancouver.  The mother had been born in China.  The daughter would be spending a year studying in Lyon, and they were touring around beforehand.  They would be in Venice for two nights, and asked us for any recommendations as to what to do while they were there.

We knew exactly what we were going to do.  After breakfast, Marika checked out and left her bag inour room.  Then we walked over the Rialto Bridge and up to the north shore of the island, to the vaporetto stop at Fondamente Nove.  There we took the vaporetto that, stopping first at the cemetery island of San Michele, took us to Murano.

Venice has been known for designing and manufacturing high-quality glass for many centuries.  During medieval times, the city moved all glass production to the island of Murano, in order to avoid the possibility that the fire-using activity might burn the city down.  An additional reason was security.  Glass was such an important source of income to the city that the industry's secrets were a matter of state security.  Glass workers were not allowed to leave Venice.  Disclosing the secret procedures was a capital offense, and any glass worker who escaped to some other country was liable to be murdered there by Venetian agents.

Murano is still the center of Venetian glass manufacture, and is very much a tourist attraction, where people watch glassblowing demonstrations and stroll up and down the streets, looking in the windows of the many glass shops and going in to look more closely or to buy.  Some of these shops were artsy.  Some sold mostly schlock.  But one thing that made them very attractive on this particular day was that they all had air conditioning.  Outside, the sun was blinding and the heat and humidity made it uncomfortable.

We wandered around, looking at glass, buying a little.  We looked into one of the churches.  It turned out that none of the factories were working on Saturdays or Sundays, so there was only one glassblowing demonstration to be found.  When we tracked this down, we were told that the blowers were on lunch break.  So we decided to do the same.

There were no recommended restaurants on Murano, so we looked around, until we finally settled on one in a square near the Faro (lighthouse).  The food here turned out to be not great but decent (again, I forget what we had--after three weeks on the road, the meals all tend to run together).

Then we went to the demonstration--we paid the five euro "family" fee and were allowed to watch and take pictures as much as we wanted.  It was interesting, though not exciting.
Then we took the vaporetto directly to San Marco, a twenty-five-minute trip.  There we bought Mary Joy a sunhat (cute, but made of 100% paper, according to the tag).  Wel took the number 2 vaporetto from there to San Giorgio Maggiore, a small island with a large Palladio church, directly across from San Marco.  This church has a tall tower.  For a fee (three euros?), you can take the elevator up to the top and have spectacular views, showing you just how small a place Venice is.  We spent quite a bit of time there, then came down and went around the corner to a cafe by the marina.  This, it turned out, had a very limited menu, so we stuck with coffee.

Then we went back to San Marco.  By this time, it was getting close to five o'clock.  Our vaporetto pass would run out at a quarter after.  So we took the number 1 for as long as we could, getting off at the Accademia just before we turned into mice or pumpkins.  On our way to Al Campaniel, we stopped at the Grom gelateria (remember them from Milan?) and each had a coppetta (little cup).

Now we picked up Marika's luggage at our room and headed for Piazzale Roma, where we caught the airport bus, arriving an hour and fifty minutes before her plane was due to leave.  The lines for check-in were very long, and they kept shifting the signs on the check-in desks, from All Flights to Berlin to Paris Charles de Gaulle to Paris Orly.  It was a little nerve-wracking, as the clock continued to tick and the few lines moved very slowly.  Would Marika miss her plane and have to stay in Venice?

There were a couple of young Australian women in line with us.  They had been in Ravenna, our next stop.  What had they liked about it?  The shoes and sunglasses had been very inexpensive.  Purses, however, hadn't been such a great deal.

EasyJet finally opened more desks and expedited processing.  It didn't matter what was on the sign above the desk said, they would take any EasyJet passenger and send them on their way.  So when Marika got to the desk, got her boarding pass and went to security, there was now no danger of her missing her flight.  We said goodbye, watched her through security and waved to and fro as she went on her way.

By now, it was after eight o'clock and poor Mary Joy was starving to death.  After getting back to Venice and Al Campaniel, we hurried to Campo San Barnaba, where we entered the sister restaurant to the now where we had eaten the night before.  This Casin dei Nobili was more of a trattoria-pizzeria than its classy waterfront sister.  They had an air-conditioned inner room, but that was full, so we ended up on the garden terrace: pleasant, but still very warm, even after 9 p.m.

Again, I forget what we had to eat, but it was good.  We had white wine with it, which led to a mishap.  Late in the meal, my sweaty arm stuck to the thin paper mat at my place, lifting it up.  Since my light, empty wineglass was sitting on this mat, it tipped over, fell and smashed on the floor.  We apologized to the Spanish couple at the next table and got to meet them.  They were from Cadiz, and she was a cooking instructor.  She said that while Italy has wonderful art and culture, the food, wine and olive oil are all better in Spain.  I said that on a trip to Spain many years ago, I had heard that most Italian olive oil comes from Spanish olives.  She said that that is absolutely true.  If you go into a grocery store in Italy, much more shelf space is devoted to butter than to olive oil, while in Spain you can find much more oil than butter.  People there go through a liter of oil in a few days.  It was fun talking with them in a mixture of English and Spanish, but after so much time devoted to Italian, we had trouble shifting into Spanish--sometimes I simply blanked out as to the right word.

On the way back to Al Campaniel, we passed by a shop window with nice sweaters for only 39 euros.  Of course, the store wasn't open this late.  But it would be tomorrow.