March 17th, 2026

The hotel has an included breakfast so we went down at 7:30am. We met Linda & Michael in the lobby at 8:15am and walked to the meeting point for our tour. We met our guide, Elena, and we loaded up on a boat to head to the island of Murano. Murano is known for Murano glass and they make exquisite items out of glass. Venetians were always known for their glass making skills and in 1291 it was decreed that all the glass makers move out of Venice to their own island just in case of fires. They also say that moving them to their own island helped keep the secrets of glass blowing. It is a 30 minute ride to the island and Elena gave us narration during the ride. The skill of glass making/blowing is passed down from generation to generation and there are several different companies that do the glass blowing. Several do demos and then you walk through their show rooms.

They demonstrated making drinking glasses.

The gentleman on the right is making glass beads that can be used for jewelry..

We walked through the showroom & saw some amazing pieces both large and small. We were not allowed to take pictures and there were no prices on the items. If you were interested you had to ask how much to have 1 made for you and have it shipped. They also have a gift shop and they sold some smaller pieces and lots of jewelry. We found it to be very expensive. For example a single glass bead that would go on a Pandora bracelet was 50 euros. We bought nothing and I am not sure anybody from our tour got anything.

We had some time to walk the island and there were several more show rooms and shops. While there were lots of interesting things there was nothing we needed to buy.

Our next stop was the island of Burano which is known for lace that is hand done. The island is also one of the most picturesque islands due to the multi colored houses all around the fishing villages.. They say the fisherman painted their houses bright colors so they were easy to find when they came home after a hard days work or maybe after a drink or 2.

The colored houses have made the island famous.

It also has a church steeple which is leaning…a lot. Our guide said that Pisa leans more.

We saw a very brief lace demonstration that was done by a 75 year old women. We were told that the lace making skill is dying out because all the people that know how to do it are older and the young people don’t want to learn. It was also interesting that they showed you an example of a finished lace piece that was the size of a dinner plate. They said it took 2 months to sew and that was working on it 5 hours per day. The piece the lady was working on requires 4 different “knots” that make up the lace. Each women who works on it does a specific knot and just the 1 knot and then passes it on to the next person. Probably another reason the art is dying.

Our lace demonstration

After the demonstration we were given almost 2 hours of free time to explore the island and get something to eat.

It was a fun island and easy to take tons of pictures. We did not buy any lace but we did get a magnet.

We took the boat back to Venice after the tour finished at 2pm. We walked back to the hotel and then after a little bit we headed back out again just to sight see.

They have an artist display of lions around town that we ran across and they are all giant and just sitting in the middle of local squares.

We stopped and had a snack since we did not have lunch on the island and Kathy got an Aperol Spritz. The weird thing about the Aperol Spritz in Venice is that they put an olive in it. It is an orange liquor flavored drink and here it has an olive in it.

I also found a place that had leather eye glass cases in every color and I wanted to buy a few since the price was good. Every time we travel and I take multiple glasses I never know what color is in what case and I have to open them all to find the pair I want so now if the case is red than my red glasses are in there and if blue, etc.

We met up with Linda & Micheal for St Patrick’s day cocktails and Michael and Kathy got Jameson’s to celebrate. After drinks we ventured out to find someplace to eat and ended up by the Rialto bridge.

Tomorrow, our last day in Venice, we have no plans but will try to get into some of the tourist places like St Marks basilica and the Doge palace. Since it is not yet tourist season we are hoping it won’t be too crowded. We may even take a gondola ride.