Having had breakfast at our hotel, we then strolled through Venice until we got to the waterfront. There we boarded the boat.
No surprise. Boats are everywhere in Venice. Big boats, little boats. Bus type boats, delivery boats, garbage boats. Luxury boats that would put a pre-war Chris Craft to shame. And of course the black shiny gondolas. This particular boat was going to Murano. The whole concept of going to Murano is a Venice must do. We had done it before, and we were glad to be doing it again.
The way it works is that one takes the boat to Murano. And then there on the island of Murano, one disembarks at the door of one of the many glass blowing establishments. One enters, and one is escorted to the actual site where the glass is blown. And from a safe distance away from the fire, one watches the master glass blowers at work. Turning molten glass into fantastic figures, or wine decanters, or what have you. Always a treat to see.
Now, all of this from the boat ride to the tour is provided to you at no charge. If, and this part is particularly important, you then tour the many showrooms of the same glass blowing factory. So after we watched equestrian figurines being created, we then went to a number of rooms, in which were beautifully displayed one-of-a-kind pieces of glass.
They’re stunning. They’re also ridiculously expensive. Now, when I say ridiculously, I mean well beyond the normal person's ability to purchase anything of any size.
For instance, the particular factory we went to was featuring iceberg size, clear, glass hand blown sculptures inside of which were entire coral reefs, with the coral, the fishes, the seaweed, and more. All floating about, but frozen in time in space. I could imagine such a spectacular piece of glass on display in a prominent place in one’s own home. Until one looked at the price tag. Then, the bubble burst. As it were.
In another room, everything was devoted to imbibing. In other words, goblets, tumblers, and decanters. They were running a special. One could buy six either wine goblets, or tumblers, and a decanter, and a lovely tray on which it was displayed, and one would have some thing absolutely marvelous to look at and use, but mostly dust. Several people in our party actually bought these sets. I prefer to buy a car. No, it wasn’t that expensive. But it could’ve gone for a hefty down payment.
I’m not being unkind in this; I’m just being truthful.
Amid all that artistic beauty, other items were also being sold. Jewelry and...watches. Been there, done that, thought we, remembering Florence. But we looked, even so.
I believe all the major factories have a similar set up. The one we were in this time is different the one we were in last time. Here’s the thing. Why not have another room devoted to what we might call conveniently size and conveniently priced mementos of the tour at the glass blowing plant? For instance, a paperweight.
Would it be possible to create one-of-a-kind, handmade paperweights, into which were set one of the fish or corals of the big tropical reef designs, and then to offer them at a cost that would be roughly around €100. Still not inexpensive, but certainly the kind of thing that travelers might splurge on, and tuck into the toe of a sock in their luggage on the return flight home. "Oh, look", they might say, "here’s a little something we can take back that will always remind us of our tour of the glass factory here on Murano!" "Oh, yes", another might add, "and it’s exactly the kind of whatits I wanted to get for my dear little whosits back in Poughkeepsie!" I think in the end, the factories would end up making more of a profit from these tours, of course still targeting the more spectacular pieces to the better-heeled travelers.
It’s just a thought.
Another thing that I have to relate is this, and tuck it away for the future if you’re going to Italy. When last we were in Italy, we went to Lake Como prior to going to Venice. We did the obligatory visit to Bellagio, and would recommend going there again for anyone. It is charming, and has lots of great restaurants and shops. Not to mention the famous bracket streetlamp. While in Bellagio, since I was still working full-time, I was quite interested in buying a silk tie. Which I did. If you’re looking at buying a silk tie, Bellagio is without question the best place to do that. Beautiful and outstanding quality, and very reasonably priced silk ties. Our daughter, Anne, who was going into her senior year of high school, found some glass jewelry that she liked. And she purchased it with her own funds. It was Murano glass. She showed it to us, and I said. "It’s lovely, but you know we’re going to Mirano. I’m sure you’ll see lots of other glass jewelry there." Well, she was right and I was wrong. Oh, they had the same type of glass jewelry on Murano that they did in Bellagio, but let me tell you the price on Murano was at least double what Anne had paid in Bellagio.
So a word to the wise. If you’re going to Bellagio, and you’re hankering for some Murano glass, go ahead! Splurge. You’ll probably have room in your suitcase, and you’ll probably still have some funds in your wallet.
The boat ride to and from Murano was lovely. Upon your return from your trip to the glassy island, you might want to poke about some of the other sites in Venice, as we did. The Piazza San Marco, for instance, and the Cathedral of San Marco, which happens to face the Piazza.
Our visit to the Cathedral this time was much more enjoyable than the last time. Back then, the fashion police were scrutinizing every woman who tried to enter, to make sure that she didn’t have bare shoulders or knees. Bare! I suppose lion shoulders and tiger shoulders working fine. But I digress. In order to combat that unsightly display of human flesh, the Cathedral would sell you, for a price, basically a cheap harvest gold color tablecloth that you could wrap around yourself to cover those otherwise unmentionable things. Knees. Shoulders. None of that this time. However, this time, something went wrong with our tour radios.
Here, I want to say some thing about the tour radios. In order to hear one’s travel guide, one is issued a lanyard type of affair at the bottom of which is a receiver. And plugged into the receiver are earphones, that one puts into one’s ears, and then hears every last word that the tour guide says. Very convenient. Now if you have gone to Italy, hoping not to look like a tourist, the last thing that you want to do is to wear one of these radios. So you might as well make up your mind before you go, if you’re in a tour, "I’m going to look like a tourist. The rest of the world will have to deal with it." Not to mention the fact that there are 40 other people that are attired similarly, cluttered around you like a clutch of peeps, and they are following somebody that has a handkerchief at the end of a tall pole. Just resign yourself to the fact that blending in as if you were one of the locals is not going to happen. And guess what, it’s not the end of the world.
Well, partway down the aisle on the right side of the church, communication got messed up. Wireless wires got crossed. Suddenly we were hearing a different tour group. And the woman who was guiding that tour group, although knowledgeable, had no idea that she was speaking to our group. Meanwhile, our guide couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
When our tour guide figured that out, he tried to remedy the situation. Which meant us standing in the side aisle for a considerable time while we waited for him to consult with the communications office hidden somewhere in the crypt of the cathedral, in order to fix what had gone wrong.
Now, here I will say that I know how to busy myself if I am stalled somewhere like that. You know that I love to go vintage shopping, in other words to flea markets, or to thrift stores. One of the things I will say about most thrift stores is this. The shopping carts are too wide for the aisles, not to mention the people who are pushing these shopping cart. The carts really should probably have one of those yellow signs on that says "wide load ahead", whether in reference to the cart itself or the cart driver. I like to shop with one of those hand-held cloth baskets, so I can dart about the store as quickly as possible, see what I need to see, and then get on my way. (If the Goodwill or Salvation Army store you visit doesn't have one of them, go to the BASKET shelves first, and pick out a convenient basket to use).
Clever, right?
Oh, that doesn’t mean that I don’t look at every inch of shelf in the departments I am interested in, but I don’t let any grass grow under my feet. Until, as is all too often the case, I get stuck behind one of these wide loads. Who, in a narrow aisle, stops to inspect every single unmatched salt or pepper shaker, or every warped piece of Tupperware.
I hadn’t really gone down that aisle for the salt shakers, nor for the Tupperware. I have two options. One is to back out of the aisle and go somewhere else. Unless as is usually the case, there’s another wide load behind me. The other is to be patient... A novel idea.
So choosing the second option, I then cast about, "Well what would I have missed if I were going down this aisle little faster?" So I sort through the castoff crockery of all kinds, and the like. Do you know on every occasion, when I have been halted in my progress by oversize carts and people, I have found something that I would’ve missed, that I didn’t know I needed. This was especially true back in the days when I was buying vintage pottery.
Back to San Marco. They we were, stranded in the side aisle in San Marco. What should we do while stalled here? How about look around at what we see. Which I did. I probably would have missed the famous, but somewhat hidden, mosaic of the Last Supper, had I not A. Found myself stalled, and B. Suddenly heard a disembodied voice other than our tour director's giving information my ear about the Cathedral. It was she who said to look at a certain spot and see the mosaic of the Last Supper.
I looked, I saw, I photographed.
Which reminds me of that famous line from "The Philadelphia Story", Do you photograph well? The answer is yes, no matter what the sentence actually was asking.
Well, with the wires finally uncrossed, we continued to explore the wonders of the ancient San Marco Cathedral. Which include very wavy mosaic floors. I’m sure the fire marshal would not approve.
[More of Venice to come...Don't go away!]
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