Venice is beautiful, magical – and crowded.  Except for early mornings and late evenings, the larger streets near our apartment are thronged with people.  But today we found that it’s very easy to get off the beaten path.  We were making our way to a place called “Fondamente Nove” to catch the vaporetto to Murano, the neighboring island famous for its glass.  Since we had no particular timetable, we just started wandering in the general direction we wanted to go.  There were many twists and turns, narrow alleys and low-clearance tunnels.  We had no idea where we were, but since Venice is a pretty small island we figured we couldn’t go too far wrong.  Eventually, we came out right where we needed to be.  Being lost on foot is much more pleasant than being lost in a car.

The boat’s first stop was at Isola di San Michele, which is a walled cemetery island very close to Venice.  We decided to hop out for a quick look, and like everything in Venice it was beautiful and fascinating.  Burials are tough here, so people are buried for 10 years or so and then dug up so the graves can be reused.  But the whole place was immaculately maintained and cared for. 

Then, on to Murano.  Murano’s “main street” (a canal) is lined with glass shops and some glass factories.  There were many, many negotiations with all the girls about what types of things would be practical, affordable, and (most importantly) possible to get home in one piece.  Eventually, exhausted by discussions in front of every glass shop, I just told them to buy what they wanted.  They all spent much or all of their remaining trip money, and then we could move on with our day. 

We spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring Venice by foot and boat, taking the slow boat all the way down the Grand Canal and reading about all the buildings we were passing.  We checked out the Piazza San Marco, which is huge and beautiful and very, very popular.  (There were some wooden bench-type things piled up in a few places, and our guidebook says that when rains are heavy the square floods, and the benches are laid out to make pathways for those crossing the square to walk on.  Given the level of the crowds, I cannot even imagine how this is possible.)

During afternoon rest time I actually managed to find my way to a market and procure ingredients for dinner, then find my way back to the apartment again.  (This is no mean feat.  The first time we left our apartment, I realized we didn’t have any paperwork on us that had its address.  So, Bob and I actually videotaped the route, including street signs, on our camera, just in case.  I was imagining us wandering around the Rialto Bridge in the middle of the night, desperately trying to find someone who could help us locate an unspecified apartment in an unknown location – not good.)

The best part of the day was the evening.  We had the kids rest in the afternoon so we could stay out a little late and see the city by night.  We rode the vaporetto, much less crowded now, to Piazza San Marco.  The kids were dragging so we considered just riding straight back rather than taking the short walk to the square, but we decided to power on and were so glad we did.  By night the crowds were thinned and the square was magical, with the beautiful surroundings and these little blue lights shooting up in the sky everywhere (which turned out to be cheap helicopter toys being sold by the ubiquitous street vendors, but they were still pretty — and best of all, the girls had spent all their money and couldn’t buy them).  Orchestras were playing and the crowd was having a great time.  And we all slept well that night.

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From Bob:

                Sorry if I complained too much yesterday about how expensive this trip has been.  I really was very ignorant.  This trip did not begin to get expensive until we hit Murano, which is an island only a short vaporetto ride from here.  Murano is famous for its glass factories.  You can get anything you want here made out of glass.

                And the girls wanted everything they saw.  There were all types of little animals and decorations and who knows what else made out of glass.  Most of it was hand-blown; however, during a glass blowing demonstration at one of the factories we learned that some of the items being sold as Murano glass in Venice, and even there on Murano, were actually cheap imitations from China.  This gets the glass makers very angry, and, of course, it ensured that none of our family would settle for cheap imitations.  

                When you see the girls, ask them what they bought.  It’s a slightly bizarre menagerie, but at least it was funded by gifts from grandparents.  Our main concern now is finding a way to cart these things home. 

                We spent a good deal of time on boats today, which was very pleasant.  The water appears to be a nice green, healthy color, though it’s probably very dirty, given all the people and boats around here.  It smells like the sea, but not like high tide.  There are waves, but not so much that we got seasick.

                We rode down the Grand Canal, too.  Twice, even – once in the day with Jen reading from a guidebook (that’s an indication of how calm the ride was, she was able to read and not get motion sick) and once at night.  The guide book recommended going at night so you could look in the windows of the grand palaces at the grand chandeliers made of Murano glass.  I can only imagine what one of those things costs.

                We also had a nice rest time in the middle of the day.  I have been in Italy long enough that I feel like I deserve a pause, too.  I napped well, and so did Lanie.

                We ate in and then took our evening cruise.  At St. Mark’s square we found the dueling bands that our guidebook told us about.  At three places along the square there were six-piece bands playing on small stages.  The square is big enough that all three could be playing at once and not interfere with one another, but it seemed that tonight only two were playing at a time.  Jen and I even got in a little dancing on the square.  That might have been my favorite part of the day, and not even because it didn’t cost anything.