Italy Part Due: Islands, cats, and statues oh my!

"Due" (pronounced doo-ay) is Italian for "two". I didn't know that until a few days before I left for Italy. I like it.

I also appreciate the comments that were left on Italy Part Uno.

In response to Nina, I would love to go back to Amsterdam someday and actually get out of the airport. Love love love.

To Catherine Denton and Mariah Irvin, I don't know how I ended up with such a fascinating flight companion. I pinched myself a lot, because I don't usually get to sit by such interesting people on planes. (Well, technically everyone's interesting. You just don't know it until they talk or do a cartwheel or something, and talking with strangers on planes can be awkward, so a lot of people--I'll admit including me--just don't do it very often.)

Anyway. To pick up where I left off, we landed in Venice in the afternoon on January 6th. Then we fought jet lag and took a walk around Venice. (There are lots of stocking, sock, and tights shops there. Just an observation.)

Oh. And I saw this:

The Rialto! It's such a pretty bridge.

And I was in VENICE. (Or, as Venetians call it, Venezia.)

The next morning a bunch of us decided to visit the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello in Venice's lagoon.

Murano is famous for its glass factories (in--I believe--the 13th c., Venetian glassblowers were kicked out of Venice proper and sent to Murano because their furnaces were a fire hazard). Many of the factories offer free glassblowing demonstrations, and we went to one.

See the broken vase? The glassblower made it before our eyes, then dropped a piece of paper in it to show how hot the glass was. The paper burned, and shortly after the bottom of the vase shattered and it fell down. In the background, the glassblower is making a horse figurine. We were, of course, taking pictures like crazy during the demonstration, and at one point the glassblower turned and posed. At that moment it hit me that pictures of him must be in many tourists' photo albums and cameras. I'd pose too.

Murano. That spiky blue thing is a glass sculpture.

Glass flowers.

Burano, on the other hand, is famous for lace making and cute, brightly colored houses. We came during siesta, and all the kids going home from school for lunch had--I'm not kidding--wheelie backpacks. Good for them. (And their backs.) They also make great cookies--excuse me, biscuits.A pack of large cats right near the vaporetto (water bus) stop.

Idyllic laundry scene.

An apparently typical place to keep one's umbrella--I saw quite a few hanging outside sun-drenched front doors.

Now on to Torcello, which used to be a big deal. Thousands of people lived there. Now? Not so much. The big tourist attraction is the church complex about a ten minute walk from the vaporetto stop, which was worth seeing, but wandering outside with a camera was the best fun. Cat houses! With cats!

Creepy vineyard.

I love the pose of this statue, which was to the left of the vineyard.

A stone chair near the church complex. Carrie, Tasia (my two travel buddies), and I decided we needed to sit in it.
This is Tasia sitting in the chair.

This is Tasia awkwardly almost falling out of the chair.

Me sitting in the chair.

If I look cold, it's because I am. But I can talk about weather in the next post, which will be about Venice!

Ciao,