After another typical start to our day, coffee and croissants, we hopped on the 9am shuttle and headed back into Venice. First stop though was the train station to organise our reservation on the train to Ljubljana for the following day. Whilst our Eurail covers the costs of the train rides you do need to reserve a seat on certain routes, this comes with a small reservation ticket fee of anywhere up to €20. Reservations generally apply to the fast train routes, the ones which cross borders and are often full, slower international trains and regional services normally don't require one so you just get on with your Eurail being your ticket.
Now for the Islands! Yesterday we bought a 36hr public transport ticket which covers all transport including inter-island boats, canal boats, buses and metro trains. At €23 it's good value for money, even better value if you use it solidly while it's valid.
First up it was the island of Murano, famous for it's high quality glass products. True Murano glass sculptures can sell well into the thousands of dollars for large pieces, fortunately smaller pieces are affordable to anyone. To gauge the true reason for these costs the glass factories allow you to watch the "masters" at work, what they can create is extraordinary particularly when you see the complexity involved in producing it by hand. Their equipment seems almost stone age, there's nothing fancy or high-tech to be seen anywhere. Also in a world where most countries are obsessed with Workplace Safety it's amazing to see that most of the "masters" were wearing shorts & T-Shirts while they mixed and sculptured red hot molten glass. Not even gloves!

After gaining an appreciation for these artists we spent the next hour wandering the canals and shops of Murano, even in the little glass shops you can watch as the smallest and most basic of glass products are made in front of you.
We made our way back to the boat stop and took the next one further on to the island of Burano, home of lace. Where Murano was full of glass shops, Burano is covered in Lace shops. However there is one striking difference here. It is simply, in our opinion, the most beautiful of all the areas around here including Venice itself. The homes and shops that line the canals are a rainbow of colours, it would seem that this is how you add character to your home when you can't have a garden or fancy external renovation. The streets & canals are clean and in comparison to Venice it's relatively clear of tourists. If you're going to Venice we strongly recommend you spend some time here.
Again we cruised in & out of the shops before coming across one that stood out from the rest, Emilia Burano (http://www.emiliaburano.it/emilia.php). It was a 5th generation family business and the quality of their lace products were a step above anything we'd seen so far. They even dealt in antique lace which sold for well into the thousands of dollars. More importantly though they were well known in the area for weddings. Even though the lady knew we wouldn't be buying today she was more than happy to spend time with me upstairs going through the different lace options for wedding dresses, veils, trains, etc.. Her knowledge was impressive and she didn't try to sell anything to us, she was just happy to help me work through some ideas.

From here we took a short boat ride out to Torcello, a very small island a bit further out. There isn't much here apart from an old church and some ruins from days gone by, in fact there is a lot of work currently being done to save this island from the rising waters. It really is in danger of being swallowed up like many of the smaller islands we went past that are almost covered now. Needless to say we didn't spend much time here and headed to the boat stop to make our way back towards Venice, stopping off at Lido on the way for some pastries to settle our grumbling tummy's.

Back in Venice and with some time still before our shuttle we settled in at a restaurant near Piazza Roma for a well earned dinner. We ordered pasta and a medium jug of wine each, the wine being half a litre, luckily we were in no hurry.
After the shuttle back to camp there was only one thing left to do, find somewhere to sleep for the next couple of nights in Slovenia. A short search of the "hostelbookers" website and we were done, a centrally located hostel with good reviews and a private room with ensuite for €24 a night each.