Murano and Burano (And I Mean It)

Murano Glass Blower

No, I didn't misspell it.  Murano and Burano are two of the 140 or so islands that make up Venice.  I guess they just feel it is easier to say "Venice" and skip the rest.  And, there is a church -- at least, one -- on each of those islands.  Unless it is a temple, because there is one island called Judaica where all the Jewish residents had to live and they had their temple on that island.  In fact, did you know that the word "ghetto" came from Venice??  They seem quite proud, but I'd be ashamed of that fact!  However, the Jewish folk were not alone.  You see, the Armenians ALSO were relegated to their own island as well.  And I suppose this was a time before they built all those hundreds of bridges that appear so quaint now.

Burano the Beautiful!

Lace making grandmother!

In any case, bridges or no, the area we know as Venice was really the escape route for those poor "Italians" who were chased into the marshes by the barbarians, who took over all the good land!  The Italians (who became Venetians) decided they were sick to death of being invaded every year by Goths and Visigoths and odd and assorted Barbarians, who took all their food, clothes, valuables and not so valuables and then burned up their villages.  What to do? Escape.  Forward!  To the marshes??  Live on those crummy islands where noone else could possibly want to go!  And escape they did.  Enough ancient history.

From there, they built up one of the wealthiest city-states in Europe.  With those fancy bridges.  And gondolas and gondoliers.  And palaces with their front doors on the canals.  And they partied away with fancy dresses, lots of jewelry, lots of sex, and lots of tribute money and goods going to Rome and the pope.  In fact, the Pope sent them an edict that they needed to build more churches -- and the Venetians sent back a message that they ALREADY had too many churches -- 140+ -- and they didn't have enough people to take care of what they had!  It reminded us of Monty Python and the lupines sketch. "Please, Mr Pope, no more churches!  We'll send you gold and riches, but no more churches!"
 Too bad, Mr. Pope.

On to Murano and Burano.  They are islands.  But kinda specialty islands.  How do you get there?  By boat.  That's how you get EVERYWHERE in Venice!  In any case, the glass makers peopled Murano.  And if you think about it, you probably have heart about Venetian glass.  Blown by hand. And every kind of glass stuff you can think of, from chandeliers, wine glasses, statues, necklaces, etc etc.  Beautiful sparkly glass, rainbow colored glass.  And, as you might expect, glass-blowing is a dying art.  To become a glass blower, you need to start at age 9 and, by age 24, you can call yourself a glass blower extraordinaire.  Many of the glass factories have closed.  The Chinese have driven them out of business.  They maintain the glass produce in the Far East is not as fine, but it is certainly cheaper!

Burano.  This is the lace island.  And you really do have little old ladies who do the fine lace making by hand, as you watch.  In fact, we indulged a little too much in the lace things!  And, as we browsed, we saw a crowd of island residents, complete with baby carriages, old people, young people and a myriad of kids -- because it was "St. Mark's" Day.  Which is kind of like our Halloween, only nicer and not scary.  St. Mark, lo those many centuries ago, had a red cape and it was cold.  So he gave half his red cape to a beggar to keep him warm.  So on that particular day, children on Burano go door to door or store to store to person to person, wearing their red capes, singing songs and dancing, -- and asking for candy and money.  The parade was lovely.  A nice memory from Venice.  As we licked our gelati cones  and smiled.