The "ano"s (Murano and Burano)

While in Venice, we took the convenient water taxi system to get to a few islands in the Lagoon. Little did I know that this was such an intricate system! We finally figured out how to get on the right taxi and which stop to get off on, and arrived pretty early in the morning to Murano, which is famous for its glass. The island was small and was filled with either seafood restaurants or (what other than) glass shops! We walked around for a little while just to explore before we stumbled on a really famous glassmaking warehouse (I wish I remembered the name). They were letting people in to watch while giving a short summary of the processes that went into making each art piece. Even something as little as a piece of jewelry looked like intense work!!

it was seriously about 2000 degrees in this place!! he's adding little colored pieces of glass
to give a speckled look once it's finished

After that little demonstration, we finally found the "center" of town. I'm putting that in air quotes because it was literally A street with A bridge. Like I mentioned, there was glass everywhere!! Really, anything that could possibly made of glass was there. Tons of wine stoppers, vases, art pieces, plates, and even dice (not so practical if you ask me!). My parents took the opportunity to buy some of it as gifts (which looking back on it, probably wasn't the smartest idea considering we had to haul around breakable goods for the rest of the trip). Anyway, we hurried through the rest of Murano to try to make more time for Burano, which I've secretly wanted to see for a long time. 

The water taxi from Murano to Burano was only about 30 minutes, and when we docked I was so excited! It is a custom to paint your house a wild and bright color. It was so fun to see all of these colors squished next to each other and it made the island (even though it's super tiny) so visually intriguing. Everything was so vivid and my mom and I took a picture about every five steps. 

The atmosphere there was really nice and we had a good time just wandering and snapping our pictures. I think americans should take a lesson from the italians!