Day 2 – Wednesday – 22 May – Venice

We woke by 7 to the smell of wonderful baking aromas, they were baking fresh bread and croissants in the hotel kitchen. Breakfast was a sumptuous affair of fresh baked breads, croissants, cheese, yogurts in various flavours, muesli etc. The only thing we regretted was the orange juice....horrid stuff.

While I waited for Mansi to get ready, I sat outside our hotel and took some pictures of the gorgeous church facing our hotel in the square - Santa Maria Formosa, the shortest way to get to St.Marks square is just past the church across two bridges.

Santa Maria Formosa Campanile (Bell Tower)

 


Santa Maria Formosa Church

 Our pick up point for the Murano, Burano and Torcello tour which was part of our FIT product, was at the St Marks Pier so we ambled along down Venetian alleys which were getting familiar to us. Mansi picked up some miniature carnival masks as gifts to give friends in one of the many shops selling Venetian masks of various kinds which we passed. The large elaborate ones were beautiful and I was keen to pick one up as a momento and for a friend, but they looked fragile and with limited space in the bags worried about damaging the design....decided to purchase one later.

 

We exchanged our voucher for tickets at the Tour Desk on the pier and waited on steps by the pier for the guide to call us. They have 2 tours - one at 9.30am and another in the afternoon at 2pm, I was informed that there is only one tour by our tour operator and couldn't book the Doges Palace Secret Itineraries Tour which is only available till 11am as both tours were clashing, and as this was part of the product it was already paid for and I could not cancel it either, on learning about the 2pm tour I was super annoyed that we were given the wrong information! Informed choice is apparently not a concept that tour operators in India are familiar with.

Mansi ventured around the pier taking pictures of the morning sunlight glinting off the water. The pier was serene till the tourists from various cruise ships which docked around the bay started wandering in huge groups. People watching was great fun as most of the tourists were fashionably dressed and of various nationalities from around the world. Our boat was a huge affair with around 30 of us on board for the trip, our Italian guide was amazing – she said the same thing in three different languages....all with a marked Italian accent which was quite cute (Italian, German and English) all one after the other so if you weren’t paying attention it was all gone, before you heard it.

She pointed out the various attractions in the lagoon on our way to Murano our first island. The ride took around half an hour and was wonderfully relaxing with the sun shining on our faces and the cool breeze blowing in from the few open windows on board. We were herded to the factory at Murano and shown a demonstration by a master glass maker who made a glass horse for us. Then it was the glass museum which had some amazing pieces of sculptures all hand made in glass. There were Christmas decorations and jewellery of glass for sale too. Everything was expensive for us so we just did some window shopping and wandered back to the boat.

Expert Glassmaker at Murano Island showing us how a horse sculpture is made.

 The boat headed to Burano next which was a short ride away. This is a picturesque island of houses painted in bright colours, words don’t do it justice, and you have to see it.

Burano Island Houses

 


Me in the square on Burano

 


One of the many canals criss-crossing Burano Island

Picturesque restaurants by the canal on Burano

 

Cute little canals run through the island with picture postcard wooden bridges running across the canal. Burano is famous for its handmade lace and we went to a store where there was an old lady creating some by hand, it looks like crochet. Very delicate looking and involves hours of labour. The island is very cute and worth just wandering around taking pictures.....we walked around and picked up some scarves for ourselves and as gifts to remind us of this memorable island.

 

 


Church and Bell tower under repairs at Torcello Island

 Soon we were off to the last island – Torcello, this is one of the oldest inhabited islands in the lagoon, but the population has dwindled down to just 11 people now. There is a church which is one of the oldest in the lagoon, we just saw it from outside and decided to explore the area around the church which had a vineyard with beautiful red poppies growing around the vines.

 

Poppies growing in the Vineyard on Torcello

 

We sat on the pier and watched a group of kayakers getting ready to kayak around the island; they were a huge group of around 20 of various ages and nationalities. They took off just as we decided to head back to the boat; we were given 30 minutes to wander around by our guide.



Pier on Torcello Island

Once back at St Marks Pier we decided to grab some lunch on our way back to the hotel as we were tired and wanted to rest our feet. Lunch turned out to be the most humongously delicious thin crust pizza I have ever had, in a tiny alley close to the bridge leading to our hotel. I had pepperoni and Mansi had assorted veggies and we both shared one with a potato topping. Stuffed we headed to the hotel and crashed. We awoke refreshed after a couple of hours and decided to head to Rialto as that area was till date unexplored and we needed to pick up a SIM which we were informed we would get at the Vodafone store close to the bridge.

The Vodafone store had sadly run out of SIM’s so we wandered around the canal near the Rialto Bridge taking in the gorgeous views of the houses lining the canal, the boats tied to the pier, the water glinting with the rays of the evening sun. Luckily we spotted a store dealing in foreign exchange also selling SIM cards and got one for Mansi’s phone.

Gorgeous Houses & Hotels Facing the Grand Canal near Rialto Bridge

 


Gondolas at the Pier on the Grand Canal

 We walked around the canal and some of the side alleys browsing the various wares on offer in the stalls and stores. After a short stop to take pictures we headed back to the store as we couldn’t figure out the pin to activate the SIM. The lady in the store was kind enough to activate it for us and we decided to have dinner at the self service place close to the store.

Both of us had a vegetarian pasta dish which was delicious but a bit too much for me to finish, Mansi was super hungry and polished off hers.  Then we wandered back to St.Marks square which to my surprise was having water in puddles around the square.....this is the famous Aqua Alte I have read about where the water comes up in the streets when the tide level increases. I sat on a bench at the pier and people watched as Mansi clicked pictures. We walked around the bay, clicking pictures and enjoying the sunset on the lagoon. It set quite late around 9.30pm.

By the time we left in a couple of hours the square was almost completely flooded with water and we had to hop around on the small patches of dry floor still visible, the plaza does look beautiful at night but tonight because of the aqua alte the cafes were empty and there were hardly any tourists dancing.

The evening was getting quite chilly so we headed to the hotel to get some rest; we were to depart early the next day to Innsbruck. Before we went up we checked with our concierge on the duration for the vaporetto trip to the train station of Santa Lucia. We had already purchased our tickets in the afternoon at the St Marks Pier Vaporetto station after our tour, so were all set for tomorrow.