My love affair with Venice

I was in Venice twice this year, once with my mom and once on my own. And guess what, I'm going to Italy for Christmas! Well I will be mostly in Rome but you never know I might just head to Venice. Our connection is just way to strong. These Venice pictures have been lying around for ages now (I just havent had the time to upload my Venice photos from April and July!).  Well on pondering over that excuse, it's not true either, I've just been really lazy. 
So the thing about Venice is that most tourists will stick to the areas on the mainland like Piazza San Marco, the Doge's Palace, etc. Not many people wander further up the Venetian Lagoon to visit the islands of Murano and Burano. Today's I've uploaded my photos from Murano. A little history: Murano has been producing the world renowned Murano glassware since the early 1200s. These glass-makers were ordered to move their foundries from mainland Venice to curb fires (as most Venetian houses has wooden frames). Cut to 2010: Murano still carries out the art of glass making and some of the craftsmen are more than willing to give you a demonstration. Although after the demonstration you are usually expected to buy some products from the shop. The people in Murano tend to be a bit aloof just like in Venice (I have remarked that generally the northern parts of European countries tend to have many prudish people. I live in Normandy, north of France, so I deal with a lot of prissy folk! all in a day's work) but there is enough mesmerising architecture and shops around to keep your spirits up. There's quite a few churches on the island, so I would recommend an entire day to take in the whole of Murano. I didn't have too much time as I also wanted to see Burano which is a good 30 mins away (?) so I speed walked through most of the place with my little digicam and here's the best of what I got.

Didn't I tell you that the architecture is stunning?

The canal that you cross to visit the glass makers' workshops

Boy with flower cart!

Murano has tons of glass artefacts all over the place. Some strange, some beautiful and some just meaningless!

Pretty street lamps on buildings!

I'm a huuuuge fan of architecture but what I love most are doors and windows!

Venice and it's islands are a storehouse of intricately carved arches and doors!

Tower right in the middle of the island and you see that strange blue object before it? That's pure Murano glass as well.

So I finally found a French couple who found a glass-maker who was willing to give us a demonstration of how to shape the glass into priceless objets. 

The man was such a wizard and I didn't even have the time to take a picture of the entire process because a) we were so mesmerised by the sheer beauty of his craft b) the fire from the oven was overwhelming c) I was trying my best to be in the moment for my self rather than my camera and sure enough it worked. I have this one picture of the finished product though. The glass-maker created a beautiful bluish-green unicorn (all in a span of 20 seconds!). Human miracles! :) 

"Ecco e uno chiesa?" "Non signorina, una chiesa!"

As I was wondering around, I saw this path leading to some place. The biggest benefit of travelling alone? You can take any path you want! and so I started on this one.

It lead to a very beautiful cemetery. What struck me the most was how many people were in there decorating the graves of their loved ones. I couldn't help thinking of my father and his unkempt grave back home. 

The cemetery was filled with flowers! I know this is not a good shot but it was the only place where there weren't any people around but there were still flowers. Oh! I'm always making silly bets with myself and I made a bet that if i found someone's grave with my name on it, I would buy flowers and decorate it. So here's the thing, my real (non blog) name is quite rare and it came as a surprise when one of the few flowerless graves belonged to my ''namesake''! Life is full of mystery! I couldn't find a florist, but I was determined to put my offering on the woman's grave. There was a park a few minutes away and I rushed over there and plucked as many pretty wild flowers as I could and came back and completed my task. I have no idea what I was pulling off. Maybe trying to comfort a guilty conscience which was not coming to terms that those flowers belonged to another person I buried four months ago! I recall crying for a while.

Ciao Murano, I leave with a heavy heart.