Day 15 - Wait....There's More to Venice?

Before I jump into today's post, I thought I should point out a few things that more properly belonged in my first post about Venice, but which I forgot to mention. The first is that, as you might imagine, Venice is very much a city of twisty, tiny streets. Knowing this, and knowing our hotel was just a few blocks from the vaporetto (it's a bus-boat) stop, Handler 1 took off with her baggage down what seemed a rather tiny street. Handler 2, dragging the big suitcase behind him, questioned if she was sure it was the right way (as we appeared to be going down a dark alley). Well, actually, Handler 1 wasn't sure, and soon determined that we needed to be going down an even smaller street, one block down, which Handler 1 had initially dismissed as being way too small for a street. Then we turned down a still smaller street to the place where our hotel was located. And here's the street!
Luckily, there are little niches with creches and images of the Virgin Mary all over Venice in random places. There's quite a few hiding out in these tiny streets, and Handler 2 dubbed them "Our Lady of Dark Alleys". As such, we always felt protected.

The other thing I should mention is Handler 2's "condition". About the time we finished our gondola ride the prior evening, Handler 2 started getting the hiccups. At first it was amusing, then it was annoying, then it became rather painful for Handler 2 and totally ruined the Handlers' dinner. Although it went away while Handler 2 slept, it returned with a vengence the next morning.

Despite this setback, the Handlers and I took off after breakfast to some of the less touristy "wilds" of Venice. This required navigating a number of those nrrow back-alley type streets, which Handler 1 found rather difficult to do, even with a good map. We ran across a number of less touristy gems, like this leaning tower.

Finally arriving at the vaporetto station we were looking for, we began our trip to some of the smaller lagoon islands associated with Venice.

The island of Murano is much smaller than the main Venice islands. How small? It makes Grosse Ile look big. But it's got lots of pretty bridges and is famous for its glassworks.

Strangely, although they saw many glass shops, the Handlers didn't manage to catch any glassmaking demonstrations. They did, however, go to the Glass Museum...which was about as interesting as a museum full of glass (where you can't take photos!!!) could be.

We were then scheduled to visit the even smaller lagoon island of Burano. Burano is famous for two things, lacemaking and technicolor houses. The houses, were quite fun to photograph.

However, once again, you couldn't take photos inside the lace museum. So, instead, here's an actual lace-maker at her craft inside a local shop.

It was also here that Handler 1 decided she wanted some gelato. Both Handlers got some (and didn't share, the bastards!) and afterwards, Handler 2 noted that his hiccups seemed to go away (they came back a few hours later). This is where the Handlers first became aware of the magic healing powers of gelato.

We were burning daylight, and there was one last place Handler 1 wanted to go to (partly because she was interested in the subject matter, and partly because it would make her purchase of the Venice Connected museum cards cost effective). So, we jumped on the first boat back to the main island, then raced through more tiny streets to another vaporetto, which led to a slow boat trip down the Grand Canal, and finally terminated at Ca' Renzzonico (a neato old Venetian palace).

Once again, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the beautiful furnishings inside, so you'll have to be content with this outside photo. We also stopped for yet more gelato, hoping it would again cure Handler 2's hiccups (It totally did! All hail gelato!)

Then as we made our way back towards our hotel, we spotted some art on disply for a nearby gallery. The art caught our eye because it was made of awesome, and we just had to stop by the gallery. The artist (Guiseppe Veneziano) is one of our new favorites.

Just how awesome is his work?

This awesome.

In conclusion, we had a really great time in Venice.

Tomorrow morning, an early train to Florence! (Yes, yes...okay, we've been in Firenze for two days now. So I'm bit behind. Deal!)