Burano -> Murano -> Le Vignole

Water-limousine!

Up as usual before the others, watching boat traffic between the islands of Mazzorbo and Burano. An unusually-shaped barge appears in the distance. I take out the binoculars to discover two cement trucks being towed across the water. An open boat passes, loaded with beer kegs, a faded Heineken logo painted on the side. We've seen water-taxis, water-ambulances, water-police, water-buses, garbage barges, telephone company boats, ice-cream delivery boats. Absolutely everything here goes by boat. 

I realize that I haven't checked my email for 5 days. This must be a record. I intended to get a 3G card for the iPad as soon as we arrived in Italy, but I didn't get to a phone shop on the Saturday, and everything was closed on Sunday. Since then I haven't seen a phone shop.

On Sunday I took a €9.00 "Pass Voyage Orange" for my phone that includes 30 minutes of voice, 10 text messages, and 2Mb of data, valid for 1 week. I need the data to get weather forecasts, and we might want to phone a marina. There haven't been any messages from work so I assume that everything is okay, but I still feel a bit guilty about not checking emails...

Out of the corner of my eye I see something moving on the wall beside the boat. I look over, but nothing's there. Look again, and see a small lizard sunning himself. As soon as Laura wakes, I show her the lizard, and she immediately spots several more that I hadn't seen. The weather is improving, it's a bright, sunny morning and they are soaking up the heat off the stones. 

What time is the train to Murano? "You mean boat?" That's what I said, boat... We're thinking about when we have to leave here in order to have sufficient time to visit Murano this afternoon. We are not allowed to moor in Murano so we'll stay at the RVF moorings on Le Vignole and get a vaporetto across. The very useful RVF documentation includes the vaporetto schedule between Le Vignole, Murano, and Venice. It's only a short 10 minute hop across. We decide to try to leave by 11:00. That will leave us a little bit more time this morning to see more of Burano.

Window shopping in Burano

After breakfast we try the church again, and this time there is nothing going on so we are free to visit. After that we do some window shopping. Lots of shops with lace of doubtful origin. We see a shop that proudly claims lace of Burano origin. We go inside for a look, and they even have a genuine Murano grandmother sitting in a chair making lace. Well, it's a family-run business after all! They have a huge selection, from small and cheap to small and expensive to big and extremely expensive. We buy a few smallish, not too expensive bits. More window shopping, and Laura is still very determined to buy earrings but we manage to convince her to wait for Murano where she is likely to get a better selection. 

By now we are running well behind schedule, so we head back to the boat and prepare to leave. The tide is falling. I walk out along the wet, slippery, slimy edge of the wall to undo the bow line. It occurs to me that nobody knows I'm out here, and if I fall in it might be difficult to get myself out again. Eileen and Laura are probably engrossed in brushing their hair and beautifying themselves, and wouldn't even hear my screams for help. If I'm lucky they might come out and take a picture! But seriously, I really should have waited until they were up on deck. I take it slowly and cautiously and thankfully don't fall in.

Eileen and Laura join me on deck, and while I'm coiling the bow line and day dreaming, the fast-flowing current catches the bow of the boat. Eileen calls to me that the bow is being pushed out. Oops, well this is as good a time as any to let go so we slip the stern line and motor off up the canal. Must pay attention! That is actually how I was planning to leave, but I wasn't planning on leaving at that precise moment!

Murano Faro, the lighthouse

We are not allowed to navigate the canals inside of Murano or moor there, but RVF recommends taking a little tour that does a bit of a "fly-by" of the island. We decide to try this. As we approach, several bell towers of Venice come into view. We're coming up to Murano now, and the water is getting busier and busier with traffic of all kinds. Boats are coming at us from all directions. Private boats, water-taxis, fishing boats, and vaporetti. 

We pass the lighthouse, continue on a bit between Venice and Murano, then turn back towards Murano. This canal leads right along the edge of the island, where several fornace (glass factories) are visible. It's much more industrial-looking than any of the islands we have visited thus far, and bigger too. Crowds of people are bunched up at the Faro vaporetto stop, waiting for a bus. Welcome back to civilization!

We head back down towards Le Vignole to find our berth. Part of the island is used by the Lagunari, an amphibious assault regiment of the Italian military. The right-most canal on our chart, the one that leads to their base, has a big red X through it. The island's canals join together at a big three-way intersection and as we head towards our middle canal, a big black rib comes out of the red one to the right and heads straight for us. I'm a bit unsure what to do, because normally we should pass port side to port side. Maybe they want to board us? Now they are crossing our bows! We see 8 or 10 marines on board as they go blasting past, off to scare some other unsuspecting boaters. 

Le Vignole

This island is mostly rural and sparsely inhabited. Both sides of the tiny canal are flanked by trees, with fields beyond. Since there is a low bridge at the top end of the canal, there is virtually no traffic here. As we get nearer the mooring piles, we see three or four other houseboats already moored. Plus a big old sailing barge. We decide to squeeze in at the back between the last houseboat and the sailing barge. I realize later that between us and the barge, we are probably blocking access to the tap that allows the boats to replenish their water supplies. We adjust the mooring lines and shut off the engine. It's wonderfully peaceful and quiet here, with only the sound of bird song and the odd barking dog. Who would have thought you could find yourself in the quiet countryside just 15 minutes from Venice! 

We get all our gear together (hats, water bottles, cameras, sun block, guide books, sun glasses, phones, etc.) and head up the path looking for the vaporetto stop. According to the map it's just past the moorings at the top of the island. We pass an entrance gate with a sign for "Agriturismo Zangrande". Is that one of those places where you pay a farmer to work his fields? There is also a trattoria, a few houses, and a tiny church. We cross the little wooden foot-bridge and find the vaporetto stop.

The vaporetto (actually a motoscafo, see here for the subtleties of Venetian public transport) comes right on schedule and takes us the short distance to Murano. Very convenient, punctual, and reliable, but not very cheap. It cost us €7.00 per person for a single journey. You can buy a pass for a day, 72 hours, week, etc. but it didn't seem like we would make enough use of it to warrant getting one. 

We arrive at the quay in Murano and push our way through the crowd waiting to get on. We wander a bit and soon come upon a quayside café and gelateria. Eileen and I enjoy a cappuccino while Laura has a gelato, of course. Right next to our table a guy is pampering his beautiful varnished taxi-limo. Up the canal, a sort of barge with a crane on it is pulling up a rotten pile. He succeeds in pulling the post, then puts his barge in reverse and heads rapidly for the exit of the narrow canal. I sense a bit of tension in the taxi driver, as he stops polishing and moves to the side of his boat. I have visions of the big old steel barge gouging up the side of the beautiful wooden boat. The barge passes safely and skillfully as the two men exchange friendly salutations. 

We continue strolling along the canals heading in the general direction of the glass museum. We spot a restaurant that's on my list, but there is a sign in the window in English saying "Sorry to our customers, closed for sickness". Whose sickness, the chef or the customers?!!! Just as we pass, a not-very-sick-looking man exits in a hurry, locking the door behind him.

Early evening along a quiet canal in Murano

We find the glass museum, and surprisingly it's not closed! It's located in the Palazzo Giustinian, which was built for the Bishops of Torcello after they moved here from that island. We spend an hour wandering around looking at the displays, and it's interesting to see how incredibly skilled some craftsmen were 2000 years ago. 

They also have a small collection of some incredibly impressive glass chandeliers. Coincidentally there is an exhibition of Venetian glass at the Musée Maillol in Paris at the moment, which we didn't get time to see before we left. Many of the pieces in that exhibition were loaned by the Murano museum, so we'll definitely have to go there when we get back! 

Next we head for the Santa Maria e San Donato church. Another beautiful brick building. This church is also very old (rebuilt in the 11th century) and has an amazing mosaic marble-tiled floor similar to Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello. It houses the remains of Saint Donatus, which were brought back here from Cephalonia in 1125, along with bones from the dragon he slayed. These large bones are displayed behind the altar, but unfortunately I only learned of this after we left so we missed seeing them.

Laura is still mad to find earrings. Stores are starting to close, and she's back in panic mode. I had read about some shops in Venice selling fake Chinese glass, so I insist that we shop that only sells authentic stuff. We find such a shop, which has a lot of beautiful glass, but no suitable earings. We convince Laura to look at the bracelets instead, and she comes away with lovely coloured glass bead bracelets for her and her friends. We pass another restaurant on my list, which is also closed.

Murano is bigger than Burano, but it is also swamped by visiting tourists during the day. And it also empties out at 18:00 as they all head back to their hotels in Venice. It's very pleasant to wander along the canals, with the beautiful light of the late evening sun, and no crowds. We find a canal-side restaurant that looks nice so we take an outside table. 

When the waiter comes to take our order he tries to convince us to have a shared seafood platter instead of the individual seafood starters that Eileen and I had chosen. We hesitate and so he gives us a minute to think about it. When he comes back, we tell him no. We'll stick with our chosen starters (spaghetti alle vongole for me and a pasta with scallop dish for Eileen). For main courses we have scaloppine al limone and scaloppine ai funghi. Mine are both quite good, but Eileen complains that her scallops could have been anything, and there were too many funghi in her scaloppine. I'm really getting into lemons for some reason. Laura has a hawaiian pizza, but again she can only manage half and we take the rest away. 

Every once in a while the chef comes out to stand by the front door and chat with the waiters. Then when someone passes by walking a dog, he pulls some dog food out of his pocket and feeds it to the dog. Hmm, I think I might know what was in Eileen's pasta with scallops...

We finish off with a limoncello and catch the vaporetto home in the dark. There are virtually no lit navigation marks, and once again I'm amazed how these guys do it. There are some fishermen with flashlights by the foot-bridge, isn't that illegal? I see a shooting star as we feel our way along the path back to the boat. Forgot the flashlight. Make a wish. Quiet. Sleep.


Log Entry for Wednesday 8 May 2013:
From: Mazzorbo (depart 13:00) Towards: Le Vignole (arrive 15:00) via Murano

Tides
▲ 1110 0.8m
▼ 1630 0.3m
▲ 2235 1.0m
▼ 0525 0.0m

Baro: 1013.6 hPa
Wind: 4 kn gusting to 7 kn
Temps: Low 13° High 21°
Forecast: Mostly sunny, dry

Engine hours: 552.6 - 554.5
Water: 1/2 +
Battery (12V): 12.5
Battery (24V): 25