November 7 - Venice, Italy - Day 3

Our final day in Venice was a short one as the ship was scheduled to leave Venice at 1:00 pm.  We opted for a ship's excursion today so as not to have any difficulty returning to the ship in time.

Wanting to go to the island of Murano, which is a 40-minute boat ride from Venice, I originally signed us up for the Murano/Burano tour which would take us to both the glass-making island and the lace-making island.  When we learned 6 of our friends would be taking the Murano/San Giorgio Maggiore Church/Gondola ride excursion, we switched over as we thought it would be great to tour with our friends and have a gondola ride experience.

The tour meeting point was at 6:55 am on the ship.  We then boarded a ferry for the ride over to Murano and were surprised to learn that we only had access to one shop...the rest were closed until later in the morning.
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Approaching the island of Murano, famous for glass factories and stores.

We exited the ferry right at the back door to the glass making shop and store.  There was a short demonstration of some glass blowing.

And then we were free to browse the store for about an hour before reboarding the ferry boat.  The displays of glass vases, chandeliers, and jewelry, were jaw-dropping beautiful.  Absolutely no photos were allowed to be taken.  So what I have here are some photos of Murano glass items from the internet.

They were certainly beautiful works of art...and very, very expensive.  We actually felt captive in the store as there was no exit available to us to go out to the street and see a little bit more of the island.  So we went back to the boat dock to await our departure.  Not quite the visit to Murano that I had envisioned.

Gay, Joyce and Terry

Karen and Richard

When we were all aboard, the boat headed over to the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, which is directly across the lagoon from the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Square.

With its four tall columns as the entryway, the church, designed by the late-Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, influenced the appearance of future government and bank buildings around the world.

As we entered the church, there was an interesting wire sculpture of a head in the nave.

Our friends Karen and Richard photographing the sculpture.

Back outside the church, we had beautiful views of San Marco across the lagoon.

And we had a little fun with our friend, Gay.  She came out of the church and sat on the front steps and started searching through her bags.  Sitting there she looked like a babushka lady with her head scarf tied under her chin.  I went over and dropped a coin in her bag so we could snap some photos.  We told her husband, who didn't come on the tour, that Gay was panhandling for money to buy a Murano glass chandelier.

Then the boat brought us across the lagoon to San Marco and we had a gondola ride.  We were 6 of us in the gondola with a grumpy gondolier, who would shout out "don't move", as we settled into the tight seats.

"Grumpy"

Terry had his back to the front of the gondola so he was facing the gondolier.  I sat in the middle, sideways...it was a bit uncomfortable due to the positioning of the seats.  

But what made it fun was that we were enjoying a ride with our friends.

It actually was a pleasant 30-minute ride through the quiet canals.

After the gondola ride we had about 30 minutes to shop in San Marco square.....the ship's excursions always allow time for shopping!!!

We opted to find some gelato cones and were happy with that.  Then it was back to the boat for a ride to the port.

When the ship sailed out of Venice that afternoon, our balcony, being on the port side, was the side with the view as we sailed past San Marco, the Doge's Palace, etc.

Good-bye, Venice

We loved Venice and would love to return there some day!

Next.....Dubrovnik, Croatia