Murano

Saturday I had an appointment with Birgit, a Bavarian woman from my class, to go to Murano, Burano and Torcello. I met her at Fondamente Nova, the departure point for Murano, at 10.00.

Venice North quay Fondamente Nova

I went ahead of time and bought 6 single tickets for the day on my IMOB card. This card lasts for 3 years, and if you live here, you have one. It entitles you to the low fares the Venetians pay (€1.10 as opposed to €6.50 tourist fare for a single ticket!) But WHAT A DISASTER to go to 3 islands on public transport together with 50 000 tourists, mostly Italians!! I think I have to have my head read, to be so utterly stupid! We got onto the first vaporetto easily, and it was only about 8 mins’ travel.

Faro entrance to Murano

Off we get at Murano, the island of the glass blowers, with centuries of tradition behind them. Right at the vaporetto stop there is a lighthouse, faro in Italian.

The Faro, lighthouse

Now we are on sidewalks with tourist numbers that defy imagination! It is sadly not nearly the interesting place it ought to be any more. Most of the shops are plastered with tourist kitsch, and everything is unbelievably expensive.

Traditional candelabras

The Chinese have created competition for these Muranese, for they import glass objects, exact imitations of the Murano glass. If you ask a shop owner whether this is Murano glass, he will say EVERYTHING in his shop is true’s bob made on Murano, and all the while he’s selling Chinese glass for an arm and a leg. The Murano stamp of authenticity looks like this.

Murano stamp of authenticity

We went into a factory where a young glass blower was strutting his stuff, listened to the guide’s story, and out we go again.

Glassblower at work

I must say, in the olden days when the people of Murano were the only glassblowers in the known world, it is understandable that they would guard their secrets on pain of death. The hand-manufacture of glassware is an ancient art, handed down from generation to generation.

Glass furnace and factory

In order to guard their secrets, nobody was allowed to leave the island or marry off the island or emigrate or even migrate! If such a person were found, they were killed immediately. Today glassblowing is no secret any more, and the craft of glassblowing, here a tourist attraction with a history, has acquired a grave competitor in the form of cheap Chinese imitations. So the Muranese still feel besieged, defensive and unfairly treated by everyone. Their prices are ridiculous. If they had made truly beautiful stuff across the board,

A thing of beauty

they would have retained the name they deserve, and they would still have sold a lot. But they make such a lot of really kitschy curios and truly awful disasters, that that leaves you with the impression “What were they thinking??!!” This is one area where the craftsman/woman has not flowed with the fashions of the times. They are still making the same old things they made 200 years ago! Not many people want to wear most of it. Who wants to take home a glass gondola?

Glass Xmas tree

All around the island there are glass installations of modern art, but nothing breathtaking. We struggled to find our way around,

Main tourist trap

because we didn’t have a map, but eventually we found the vaporetto stop to Burano (same as where we got off). There were already about 70 people in the waiting area. So we wait. A vaporetto came, we waited for about 5 mins for the boat to disgorge its people cargo, the mob advanced, these mad Italians shouting “Vai, vai,vai!” (Go, go, go!) and pushing worse than the first day of Summer Sale at Debenhams! I thought this was my last day! Then we came to a halt out on the deck. The chain had been reconnected: too many people on board, we must wait for the next boat. Here we are, standing in the blazing sun, packed against each other like sardines, tin upright, with no place to go. When at last 25 mins later another vaporetto came, my toes were numb, I was walking on stumps. Every Italian was at large today with wife and kids, pram, grandma, and some friends to boot. The foreign tourists were few and far between. We sat down for the long ride to Burano.

Venetian lamps

When we passed around the island in the boat, I saw glass factories with landing jetties inaccessible on foot. Then I realised that this was what I had read about on the internet but didn’t connect the dots properly: at St Marks’ Square there are people advertising free trips to Murano. They take you to these factories where you are literally their captured prisoner. They subject you to high pressure sales talk, and if you don’t buy anything they keep you there until you have missed your boat or train or the last vaporetto… There is absolutely no reason why one should fear going there on public transport and just looking at everything.