Murano, Venice (The glass island)

Murano, Venice (The glass island)

Murano, located in the Venetian Lagoon, is a wonderful island famous for the processing of glass. The history of the glass industry dates back centuries, but the same technique of the past is still used nowadays. If you are interested in it, then you can visit the Museo del Vetro (Glass Museum) in this island, which is located at Palazzo Giustinian.

To reach the island you should first go to the central city of Venice; from there you can take a water bus that, after a little while, will get to Murano. It is an amazing journey: while you are on the boat, you can enjoy the view of the city from the water. To take the water bus you should buy a boat ticket, which costs around 7 euro, if you do not have a one day pass to travel, which costs around 20 euro. While you travel by boat you can observe huge trunks emerging from the water, called "bricole", arranged in the middle of the lagoon to identify the passable canals and thus facilitate boat navigation.

When you reach the island you can see lots of glass factories. They offer you a free ride to see how they make these glass products. You can see how they do these amazing creations from this video. It is an amazing thing to see by your own eyes. They make lots of glass carvings such as horses, birds, elephants, and many other types of glass products such as flower vases, glasses, mugs, dishes, souvenirs etc. There are lots of showrooms and shops where you can buy these objects. In most of these places it is forbidden to take photographs.

If you want to buy these products, I suggest you to have a look around the area since you can find some shops where they sell these same items for cheaper prices than the places where they let you see the working technique. In fact, most of the time factory showrooms offer these products for high prices. If you go to Venice, do not forget to go to this island.