Murano, and Home

Our third and final day in Venice started with our taking a vaporetto over to the nearby island of Murano. 

The island has been home for Venetian glass-making since 1291, when all of the glass blowers were kicked off the main island for fear of fire.

An Italian "floral arrangement" made of Venetian glass!

We wandered the streets on domenica (Sunday), and while many of the active factories were closed, there were workshops that showed glassblowing demonstrations.  We got to see a glassblower create a cavallo (horse) on the spot!

It was fun to see all the places that this particular factory shipped:  Ross-Simons, TK Maxx (the British TJ Maxx), the Smithsonian, and Tuesday Morning, among others!

We continued strolling the streets of Murano,

and found ourselves in a residential area, complete with park and a more modern "roadway"!

A glass Madonna on a street corner

A huge outdoor sculpture,
assembled from hundreds of spines!

Two rowers on opposite sides, to keep going straight!

Again, more artwork in the streets -- the kids did their best to have a shoving match and twist each other like the streetlights behind them:

Particular galleries reminded us of the work of David Chihuly, whose exhibit we had seen at Rhode Island School of Design -- and in fact, Chihuly had studied and worked at the Venini glass works in 1968 on a Fulbright!

As we walked on a little further we found an out-of-place loon (no, not Adam!):

and then it was time to take the vaporetto back to Venice, to grab our bags and head home.

On the way we stopped at Isola di San Michele, which Venice's cemetery.  (It's interesting to think about how people living on an island would bury their dead.  I later learned from reading this article that the island was decreed a cemetery in 1837, during the Austrian occupation.)  Ezra Pound is buried here, along with Igor Stravinsky!

We then saw our last "Hello, Venezia" sign with its fishy emblem of the city as we waited at the "bus stop,"

and took the vaporetto to the train station,

and bid a fond farewell.

Oh, and by the way:  Adam wrote this blog entry, and nowhere did he mention that I was on the hunt for a beautiful Murano glass necklace!  (I know, priorities, right?).  I  succeeded in the studios of Simone Cenedese.

A piu tardi!