Our third day in Venice dawned with brooding skies. Having managed to walk everywhere we needed to go, we hadn’t yet taken a ride on the vaporetto (the Venetian equivalent to a city bus). We had plans to remedy that oversight with a trip to the glass-making island of Murano – and a side trip from there to picturesque Burano. With that in mind, we purchased a vaporetto day pass.
The boat ride was a highlight – especially for B, who giggled maniacally (and infectiously) as he stood on the open middle deck. He laughed out loud, head flung back, as he caught the spray from the rising waves in his face. I held D to my chest in the front pack – sheltered from the wind and spray by my scarf – and he slept through the excitement.
The Peggy Guggenheim Museum, where we’d been the day before
When we arrived in Murano, we immediately realized the shortcoming of our ‘plan’ – and that was that we had none (aside from the vague intention to ‘go to Murano and see some glass-making’). We eschewed the offers from the larger factories as we disembarked from the vaporetto, thinking that it would be too commercial a presentation and probably a bit of a hard sell (when we really just wanted to see a demonstration – without a ‘tour’ of the gift shop – and then head along to Burano).
Some of the fine glassworks produced by the famed studios of Murano
So we wandered along on our own on what turned out to be rather a shambolic misadventure.
For starters, we couldn’t find any of the smaller studios we’d read about – and we didn’t even really know where to begin looking. Our search for the glassmaking studio was further hampered by four hungry boys who were clamoring for lunch. Complicating all of this was the fact that there were plenty of gorgeous places to eat all along the canal’s edge, with enticing menus, that were just a bit too far out of our budget to consider. We found a supermarket and loaded up on fresh bread, cheeses, nuts, and a few other odds and ends – and we sat down on a little floating dock beside the canal to consume the meal.
More unfocused wandering followed, with my mood growing fouler and the darkening skies echoing my inner thoughts. We decided to refresh ourselves with a gelato.
Only, we couldn’t find gelato. So West popped back to the supermarket and returned with a box of chocolate-coated ice cream blocks. He was delighted – they were cheap as chips. I advised him not to get used to it – you don’t go all the way to Italy and then compromise with imitation gelato!
Even D wasn’t impressed – gelato isn’t served on a stick!
The clouds were really starting to look threatening, so we decided to wander to the main drag (the internal piazza of the island) and then head towards the vaporetto stop; we thought we’d give it a final try and see if we could find a glass studio on the way.
Gorgeous glasswork in the piazza – but still looking for the studios…
Under black and roiling skies, we reached the end of our exploratory walk before our turn-around point, and A announced the need for a restroom break. I happily concurred, and the two of us (along with D, who was strapped back into my front-pack carrier) popped into a café for an espresso for me and a pit stop for both of us. (Upon my return to our apartment, I posted this status update on Facebook: “If balancing over an Italian toilet wearing your toddler in a front pack were an Olympic sport, I wouldn’t make the team…” – so you can guess how well THAT went!)
A lighthouse outside the cafe – the photos don’t do the stormy sky justice
The coffee was a welcome pick-me-up, but we could see that the downpour had begun to dowse nearby islands, so we hightailed it back to the vaporetto. Perfect timing – there was one waiting at the jetty, and we hopped on.
But as we waited for the boat to leave, we had second thoughts. We’d come all the way to Murano without seeing a glass-making demonstration. Wasn’t that just too negligent of us? We thought that it was. So we quickly hopped off the boat and headed for a big, touristy studio where we were ushered in to see a short glass-blowing demo – the boys even got front-row seats. With that done, we skipped out of the gift-shop when the rest of the group went through, headed straight for the boat, and sheltered from the first heavy raindrops as they hit the deck.
We FINALLY got to see some glass-blowing!
We walked home through shiny streets, revelling in the sights and sounds: Venice was beautiful in the rain. The scent of wet stone, the reflection of exquisite buildings in the puddles, the sight of Venetians hurrying home to dry off or sheltering from the deluge in a café…
We had wasted money buying our vaporetto passes and only using them twice; we’d been grumpy; we’d wandered aimlessly; we’d eaten supermarket ice cream instead of real gelato; I’d lost my balance and ended up sitting on a seat-less café toilet (ugh!); and it had POURED – we hadn’t even made it to Burano… The whole day was a bit of a comedy of errors. But on the plus side, we’d had a riotously fun vaporetto ride; we’d enjoyed the island in spite of our moods; we had seen some amazing glasswork; and WE WERE IN VENICE! Even when you’re a jaded tourist or a grumpy traveller, and even when your sightseeing doesn’t go as planned, Venice is still incredible.
In spite of it all (!) it was a good day
So that night, as we waited for Westley to return with our seafood feast and watched the rain drench the courtyard outside, I felt grateful for the day we had. Grateful for my little D, perched in the windowsill and calling out to everyone returning home to the neighbouring apartments, “Ciao! Ciao!” Grateful to be in this beautiful place with all my boys, savouring La Dolce Vita.
Life is sweet – even in the rain.
We’d put our camera away when it got really wet – so here’s Dmitriy Moiseyev’s photo from flickr
Have Kids, Still Travel 