If you’re heading to Venice, depending on how much time you have, it’s worthwhile building in a trip to see some of the islands. With it being 7 year old POD’s first time in Venice, we opted for a half day tour to Murano, Burano and Torcello. Burano is around 40 minutes from the capital of northern Italy’s Veneto region, famed for its lacemaking and colourful houses.
Burano is situated around half an hour from mainland Venice. The easiest way to get there is through an organised tour, by taking the vaporetto ferry (water bus) or via private water taxi. The latter is the quickest and therefore most expensive way to travel in Venice.
It’s worthwhile doing some research before you go to Italy to decide how you want to get to the islands and what you want to do when you get there. We opted for a tour but had the flexibility to do what we wanted in Burano and Torcello with a glassblowing demonstration in Murano.
Although you can book tours or take the ferry when you arrive in Venice, we opted to book before we left the UK. This was because we wanted to make sure we actually got there (we were in Venice in August) but also because we wanted to have sufficient time on each island. We met our tour guide a short walk from Piazza San Marco, in front of the Prisons’ Palace between the Doge’s Palace and Hotel Danieli. There was a briefing 20 minutes before we left and our boat departed from the San Zaccaria terminal. We paid around £50 for the three of us which included an English speaking guide and the Murano glassblowing tour. If you’re taking the Vaporetto, you need line 12. Tickets are typically €7.50 per person and valid for 75 minutes. A water taxi is the most expensive at around €120 each way.
The picturesque fishing village of Burano is one of the most colourful places in the world. Although the island is known for its lacemaking, the draw (for me anyway!) is the brightly coloured buildings. Rumour has it the houses were painted like this so they’re visible from the sea and that tradition has stuck. Whatever the reason, it’s the ideal place to capture the colour, walk the canals and wander over the wooden bridges. The most well known bridge is Tre Ponti (Three Bridges) which connects three canals and three of the most colourful streets – Giudecca Via, Via San Mauro and Via San Martino Sinistro. We had limited time to explore this small island which typically went in a flash. Had we been in Venice longer, I could have quite happily spent an entire day mooching around here. We were lucky with the weather and that always helps doesn’t it?
Lacemaking is at the heart of this beautiful island where you can visit the lace museum (in a gothic palace) and see lace being made. In Piazza Galuppi is the Istrian stone well with shops and restaurants nearby. There’s even a leaning bell tower (situated behind the Church of St. Martin Bishop) which is 53 metres high and built in the seventeeth century. If you walk beneath it, you can really see how much it leans! Next time we visit Burano (there so has to be a next time), I’d love to visit the fish market (Pescaria Vecia) in Via Giudecca and take in the views. We missed Bepi’s House, the brightest on the island, but we certainly took in our fair share of colour.
