Day 7: Venice & Burano, Italy

We woke up, had a nice breakfast at the hotel...and noticed the skies looked clear and blue, so we figured we would explore an island about 30-45 minutes away by boat (Burano). Ryan and I each quickly popped a Bonine pill, and figured it would start to kick in by the time we got to the water taxi station at the north end of the island.

While I waited for the boys to get ready (this is not unusual), I walked around near the hotel and snapped some gorgeous photos of the buildings lining the canal.

On our way to the boat, we snapped a few more pics of the beauty...it was hard to stay focused on the journey to the water taxi station when there was much to stop and admire.

Our timing to get on the boat was impeccable. We literally strolled right up to the line (which was boarding the boat), quickly got our tickets and then walked right on, as they were getting ready to push back. It was a little choppy, and therefore, a little nauseating. It was pretty gross all the way until we pulled into Murano island just a few minutes away (you can see it across the way). I had hoped because it was a channel so far from the ocean, that it would have been a glassy smooth ride, but it was pretty windy with potentially inclement weather on the horizon.

The boat first stopped at nearby Murano island, which looked very industrial, as it's largely the glass factories. Once we left Murano, the ride got a lot smoother!

The island of Burano is another 20 min or so from Murano, and is renowned for their handmade lace (although many are imported these days) and brightly-colored buildings, which were once used by fisherman in the often foggy-weather to identify where their house was.

The island was so much slower/quieter/tinier- a very pleasant departure from the healthier crowds of Paris and Venice.

The vibrant colors felt more like we were in say, Mexico or South America 

And I don't know when Italy became the magnet capital of the world, but they had the most impressive miniature magnet replicas of popular food products there! I wanted them all and I didn't even know what the products were! I thought Japan held the title of the most detailed food replicas (bento boxes, entrees, erasers), but I am thinking Italy is neck and neck. I want to say they were about 7 Euro each...and adorable.

It looks so far off, but that's a canal in the background, and like many restaurants in Italy, we paid per person to sit outdoors so we could enjoy the ambiance and safety of the outdoors. Some places were just a few Euro each, others were a bit more if they had a live orchestra or entertainment. I chalked it up to basically paying to see a concert...and therefore, not unreasonable. 

Once we finished eating our lunch, we headed to a little gourmet grocery store nearby to get a ton of gifts for family/friends. We got flavored pastas, risottos, gnocchi, coffee, colorful pastas, etc. Our bag weighed 15 lbs after that, so we caught the boat back to our island, dropped off the food, and changed into warmer clothes and headed back out. But not before we grabbed a few more cannoli!

We ended up at our favorite little pasta shop again for more carbonara (even though we'd also had it at lunch, haha).

Just before going back to our room, we bumped into Italy's oldest restaurant- the historic Cafe Florian (which Chef Ken at work had told me about)...and saw they had live entertainment with a 6 Euro per person surcharge outdoors. As much as I loved the ambiance of the outside cafe, I was far more smitten with the indoors, which resembling more of a palatial tea house (see below).

Cafe Florian's ambiance is that of a palace in each room...

The beauty of Venice is that are dozens of way to get from Point A to Point B and rarely were our walks alike...on way back home we found this quiet, serene little street with not a soul on it but us.