Day 3: Murano and Burano
No Brunch?
We spent a while this morning looking for brunch and the verdict is clear: you will be hard pressed to find a brunch spot in Venice. Your choices are espresso and pastries for breakfast or waiting til lunch for pizza and pasta. Nothing in between.
It's easier to find a place that serves coffee, wine, and gelato at any hour of the day than it is to find a simple brunch.
We do have to give credit where it's due - we finally found a place that serves brunch. But that was at 8pm on our final walk home.
On our morning walk, we also noticed a restaurant's outdoor seating being overtaken by the canal.
Visiting other Islands in the Venice Lagoon
We wanted a change of pace today, so we visited Murano and Burano.
Caption: Burano, taken from the Vaporetta as we approached
Murano, known for its glass, must have 100+ glass shops that each sell glass wares "hand-made in Italy." I put that in quotes since several shop owners warned us of the fraudulent sellers mislabeling imported glass as Italian.
It's unfortunate. I doubt any Murano visitor has enough expertise to tell the difference.
Eventually we stumbled upon a shop owner actively making glass jewelry in a corner of his store. This is who we purchased from - it's easy to trust when you see the artist make it right before you.
The Colorful Town of Burano
While Murano is a 10 minute boat ride from Venice, Burano is about 30 minutes out. Visitors go mostly to walk its rows of colorful homes and shops.
We didn't get to spend much time here. We arrived around 6:30 and the last boat out of the town seemed to be 7:20. In that short time, though, we noticed dozens of locals heading back to their colorful homes. It's nice to see that a community still thrives there despite the overbearing presence of tourists.
This was also the first place we found wandering cats! Venice has plenty of dogs wandering about, but we were starting to wonder where the cats lived.