I woke up refreshed today after getting about 9 hours of sleep. The sun was shining and I looked forward to what today had in store for us.

During our past visits to Venice we never left the city. Today we decided to visit the islands of Murano and Burano in the northern lagoon. We took a vaporetti (bus-boat) on the vaporetto (public transit system) to Murano.  It took 10 minutes from the Fondamenta Nuove vaporetto stop on the north shore of Venice.  We could have taken a "free" ride to Murano that the hotel would arrange but didn't want to be obligated to buy anything with the high pressure sales pitch from the glass factory that was providing the ride. To get to the vaporetto stop we had to wander through the Cannaraegio sestiere (Jewish ghetto). Last time we stayed in this district. As we wandered through I remembered some of the sights - it brought back fond memories. If we had taken the vaporetti from the other side of town it would have taken us 45 minutes.  It was worth the lovely 25 minute walk through the laneways & over bridges, through partially remembered areas, to have a shorter vaporetti ride.

Murano is renowned for its glass.  It is the most famous place for glassmaking in the entire world.  It is similar to Venice with bridges that link many small islands, which are dotted with houses that once were workmen's cottages. This island came about in the 13th century when the Republic was concerned about fire and were anxious to control the expertise of the artisans. The glassworks were moved to Murano.  We got off at our stop and wandered up Via Fondamenta Vetrai (street along the canal of glassmakers).  There are many factories and we were able to watch the infamous Murano glass being made in one of them.  apparently it takes 15-20 years to become a master glassmaker. And we thought 4 years of university was a hardship!! We thought the price we would have to pay for the "free" demonstration was going to be a very high-pressure sales pitch to buy some wares but we didn't feel any pressure which made looking around the showroom more pleasurable (and, regardless, we didn't feel obligated to buy anything because we didn't take advantage with a free ride over).

Burano is an island of fishing traditions and houses painted in a rainbow of colours.  It reminded me of the fishing villages in Newfoundland only with canals. Cheerful houses line the canals of this quiet village where lace making rescued a faltering fishing-based economy centuries ago.  On the quiet streets of the town I imagined elderly women sitting in stitching circles, hunched on their wooden stools.  Unfortunately, nowadays most of the lace is machine-made in Taiwan. However, we did go into some shops and browsed the beautiful hand made lacework. One thing we noticed was many of the front doors to the houses had curtains on the outside. We tried to find out why but no one seemed to know. We got answers like it's to keep the cats away (there are many wild cats on Bursano) to privacy while getting air, decoration and it's always been like that. So take your pick.

We caught the vaporetti back to Murano while enjoying the gorgeous sunset over Venice and then took another vaporetti to San Marco Square. We decided to splurge and go for a drink at world renowned "Harry's Bar".

The story of Harry's bar is this: Harry Pickering was a sad young American student who had come to Venice with his aunt and her dog, to cure his incipient alcoholism. After two months, Harry Pickering fell out with his aunt, who went away leaving him alone with the dog and precious little money. Giuseppe Cipriani was a barman at the Hotel Europa and frequently served Harry and his aunt. Giuseppi decided to loan Harry 10,000 lira because he thought that this Mr. Pickering was such a fine young man. In February, 1931, long after abandoning all hopes of ever seeing Harry Pickering again or his money, Harry showed up at the Hotel bar. "Cipriani", Harry said, "here you are. Thanks for the money. In gratitude, I'm adding another thirty-thousand Lira so that you can open a bar of your own for high society." Cipriani opened a bar and called it Harry's Bar.

After having an overpriced Bellini and martini (although both were very good) we decided to do an Italian pub crawl (giro d'ombra) and enjoy cheap ombra and Italian tapas (cicchetti) in several baccari (bars) instead of a sit down dinner in a restaurant. Students frequently do this as it's cheap and filling. However, after standing outside in the cool air and balancing our wine glasses and plates with no table we decided we had passed the student stage and so our giro d'ombra lasted one baccari where they served mini sandwiches but good wine. After that we decided to go to a restaurant. Good, cheap wine is plentiful here but sandwiches for dinner just wasn't acceptable. We wandered the passageways and finally decided on a restaurant. We went in and sat there for a while. We got tired of being ignored so we left and found a lovely restaurant where we indulged in a seafood dinner for two. Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for our day in Casarsa with Vic's family.