Venice Day 2

We strategically decided to head out late again today since we could buy a 24 hour pass for €20 ($33.70 NZD) that would include all travel to the graveyard island, Murano, Burano and also our boat trip back to the train/bus station tomorrow. It would also include the bus if we chose to take that to the car instead of walking. So it seemed like a pretty good plan since it would cost €30 ($50.60 NZD) return each to Burano anyways. Lew caught up with his parents and we walked to the Rialto market to buy some meat patties for our burgers tonight. The short 5 minute walk later we discovered for some reason the butchers aren't open today meaning there is a high chance we will be making our own patties tonight if we can't find anything else during the day. We did pick up a tomato and also some bread rolls. We dropped it all back at the apartment and grabbed our bags heading to the closest place to catch a water bus. €40 later we had tickets for the day and just had to work out their boat/bus system! It certainly wasn't as well oiled as some of the public transport systems we had used previously. Getting on at the correct dock we boarded the boat to cemetery island. We literally just got on as the boat was starting to pull away and they hadn't even closed the barrier yet. OSH would have a field day if this was in nz! They also pack so many people onto the boat I can't imagine that they would have enough life jackets or boats if anything went wrong. We arrived on cemetery island only after about 5 minutes on the boat with what seemed like majority of the Venetian locals carrying flowers. We were in awe of how the Italians treat the dead and we have never seen such a well tended to and loved cemetery. Every single grave had flowers on them whether they were alive or fake (the flowers I mean!) we wandered around amazed at the number of large family tombs there were some with name of people haven't even died yet. I couldn't imagine visiting one of my late relatives and looking up seeing my name engraved on a bit marble tomb, creepy. The pavement also seemed to be along side some tombs and you walked over the large concrete slabs that move beneath you and make you think of falling into the graves below! After seeing enough graves to last a lifetime and agreeing that we should visit our grandparents graves more often we tried to catch the boat to Murano.

You could see the island in the distance and we really just wanted to hire our own kayak and get their ourselves. Another short boat ride we arrived into one of many ports on Murano. Murano is known for its glass as the people of Venice didn't like the pollution of the kilns on the main island they were all pushed out on the neighbouring island. It is small but every single shop sells basically the same glass items unless you find a designer store in which the items are heavily priced and more unique. We had had to delay our admiring of glass items to find some food for Lew. I had purchased a slice of focaccia from the bakery this morning since it is usually harder for me to find food than Lew. I was however a bit jealous as he ordered a pizza from a place called Approdo on the waterfront. It didn't look like much but the pizza was a lot better than yesterday's. We stood on the waterfront eating and watched the boats come in. Post lunch I began my search again for some cute glass earrings and almost had it nailed down until I realised the back of them was just a plastic fastener which was a bit cheap. I almost abandoned my search until we found this place called De Biasi Murano which was clearly selling a lot higher end jewellery for still a reasonable price. I was looking at the ones with flowers in them until Lew pointed out this very cute white glass with a blue triangle in it. Very classy! So for €10 ($16.90 NZD) I managed to find a small souvenir and it just proves that sometimes patience is worth it. It was 3pm at this point and we still had to get ourselves to Burano which would take 50 minutes on the ferry. We had to walk all the way back to where we had lunch in order to catch it and waited in lines with everyone hoping they were also going there and not just back to Venice.

Thankfully the porter yelled out Burano for the boat we were lined up for and and we all started squishing on. The entire journey didn't have much to see at all other than a lot of wooden mooring posts and swamplands in the distance. There were a few seemingly abandoned islands with broken houses on them, anyone want their own island? As we came closer to a small island called Mazzorbo next to Burano we decided to get off as we noticed there was a bridge connecting the two island. This small island is famous for its wine at the Venissa Estate and also it's Michelin-starred restaurant. It felt like very late in the afternoon since we are not used to the sun setting at 5pm and it was after all 4pm when we arrived. We walked the short 5 minutes around the island and across the bridge to Burano. Now this must be one of the most Instagrammed islands recently as it has the most stunning multicoloured pastel fishermans buildings. legend has it the buildings were painted different colours so that the fishermen could see there house from out at sea and could find their way home. It is a small town known for its lace production in which the women have been masters of lace since the 1400s.  An estimated 3,000 people live in the archpeligo and their main economy is tourism! I have to admit I was very surprised by the amount of people visiting Burano since it is a hours boat ride from Venice and I figured only the adventurous and photography loving people would venture there. I mean it is probably hands down the most picturesque town we have come across. It didn't take us long to walk up and down the cobblestone streets on either side of the small channel. Some local fishermen were smoking like trains as they emptied their daily catch of small crabs into a different container. There were a few that obviously didn't meet their criteria and were thrown back into the water. I don't even know what you could do with crabs that small as there certainly wouldn't be much meat on them! We got some photos and video in the dwindling sunlight and admired some lace from afar as we made our way back to the boat. We were mindful of the time it would take us to get back and that we still hadn't found a butchers to get meat patties for dinner! The boat was so packed that we had to stand the entire way and I would hate to think what this is like in the main tourist season. 

Getting off the boat in Venice we made our way back to the San Polo district and found ourselves some meat patties from the supermarket. We weren't so stoked that they were pre- made but we didn't have the ingredients to make our own (egg, breadcrumbs, Worcester sauce etc!). Lew took the reins and made dinner tonight and the apartment was full of smoke from burning oil, just as well these places don't seem to have very touchy smoke detectors like we do at home. The patties ended up tasting a bit like rubber and seeing as dinner was so rubbish I had to make some chocolate self-saucing pudding again to make it all better. I don't think we have an oven for awhile now so it will be something we probably won't have again for a few weeks. We looked into booking the last lot of accomodation in Switzerland and also had a wee check to see what the weather will be like in the next few days as we head into the Dolomites tomorrow. It seems that we may get some snow when we are up there and we are not so sure how we feel about this since our car isn't made for snow at all. I guess if we run into a lot of snow we can either buy some chains or just stay put for awhile hoping it melts quickly. I love snow but we really are not prepared for it at all. Goodnight everyone, I hope you have all been enjoying the weather warming up. I certainly feel a little jealous of your impending summer as we are constantly reminded of our impending winter! In hind sight I wish we had waited until NZ was heading back into winter again before leaving but I think we were so stressed we were getting old that we had to go ASAP :P xo