Murano and Venice

I woke up on Saturday morning (early) to head to the airport to meet my mom. At this point, I was so excited to see her for so many reasons! First, I was so excited to see Italy with her. And second, I’d known for a while that her joining me on the trip meant that the trip was basically ending. I had one week with her, and then it was time to go home! And of course, I was just happy to see HER after four months!

It was so fun to see her there, and we immediately got on the water taxi to see Murano. We decided it would be easier than detouring to Mestre to put her stuff up, and then going back out. Looking back, that was probably a suboptimal decision. I’d been so used to basically every public transit station (or touristy area in general) having somewhere you could pay to stash your bags for a few hours, but alas, Murano has no where to store bags.

And of course, Murano is all about the incredible glass works. Whoops. Not such a great combination, but hey, you live and learn and get through it! We spent the morning walking through Murano and wandering into the glass shops to take a look. It’s all so pretty, but I’m not sure I’d ever buy anything there. They say they’d ship it home for you, but I’ve heard of a number of horror stories of people not getting what they actually purchased when it came in the mail. So looking and getting small things we could pack was the order of the day!

It was so fun to see it through my mom’s eyes. I think after traveling for so long (and how you know it’s time to go home!), I have gotten so accustomed to seeing such incredible things day after day that the wonder of it isn’t like it was at the start of the trip. But for my mom, everything was incredible and wonderful. It was so fun to see her joy and transfer it back to me!

After wandering Murano for a few hours, we headed over to Venice to explore some more. We took the vaporetto to the train station, because that way there is ONE place you can store bags. I’m shocked that with as many tourists and day trippers as Venice gets, bag storage is such an issue. Business idea?

Once we didn’t have her big backpack, we wandered through the city. It’s such a beautiful city and joy to get lost in, but I have to say that I’m officially behind the efforts to limit tourists. It was SO crowded. Everywhere you turned it felt like there were tons of people, and I think that really takes away from how amazing it is. Not to mention how hard it is on this centuries-old city.

We found a restaurant on a less-busy side street, and enjoyed a leisurely lunch. I love how Italians have wine with lunch. We really need to bring that tradition to the States!

After lunch, we went to St Mark’s Square, and went into the basilica. Holy crap it was gorgeous. It seems like the churches everywhere in Italy are just incredible! We wandered the square for a while but didn’t stay too long – again, the crowds were just insane.

We wandered to the Rialto Bridge, which was quite a sight! I can’t believe how old so much of this is, and yet how amazing it looks.

After that, we wandered the city some more, but headed back towards the train station to go back for the night. It was quite a tiring, but amazing, day!