Venice, Italy, July 31

Most of the 490 passengers from the past week are leaving today. Our 14 day cruise is 2 7 day segments. It is lovely hearing the furry of departure morning on that boat that usually applies to us, not applying to us. For us is it another (albeit early – 8:00) morning of room service and a tour.

Venice is made up of many islands and travelling between them requires water transportation. Either you have your own boat or you take a water taxi or water bus. A water bus is about 10 USD and the taxi is about 100 USD – that’s right. I don’t know how far that takes you, but the minimum based on a government regulation was 50€. Needless to say we didn’t take the taxi. We didn’t take the bus either – basically we could walk anywhere other than our tour for which transportation was provided.

Our tour this morning is to Murano and Burano. Murano is the island where Murano glass comes from. After a 20 minute boat ride we arrive at Murano for a short glass blowing demo. It was even hotter in the demo as you can imagine, but the old guy dong the work was unbelievable! I tried to get a video of him making a horse, but I missed most of the beginning of it. Let’s just say that what I did get was about half of the demo and in the end he finished a horse. It was like magic before my eyes. I bought a necklace and earrings.

Next we took a boat to Burano (another island, see pic) this island is famous for the brightly colored houses. Each house is colored more brightly than the next.

In the evening we are towed out to sea by a tug boat (see pic). Took about an hour.

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