Colourful Venice – Exploring Murano, Burano and Torcello

· by · in Italy, Venice. ·

After visiting historic Venice on foot, we got up really early that day and took a boat to Murano, the island famous for its glass. Murano was a commercial port as far back as the 7th century, and today it is the best place to buy glass with threads of gold (aventurine), multicolored glass (millefiori), or other amazing pieces from Murano’s artisans.

Everything was very quiet when we arrived, it was still really early, and we nearly had the place to ourselves.

 

We decided to go the glass museum but it was a bit disappointing. Not a lot of information and it was just tons of glass pieces stacked up in some display cases. There was a few historic pieces but more of the things were quite recent and not that impressive.

 

We then took the vaporetto to Burano. This island was definitely my favourite! The houses were so colourful! This island is very famous for lace, however people also produce Venetia masks and glass on the this island as well.

 

We had amazing food over there and took a lof of pictures of the colourful houses and the laundry hanging outside.

Torcello was our last destination. Torcello is a bit less well known that the other two islands. Torcello was found in 452, and now has a full-time population of 10 people! There is a lovely church to visit, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. Not a lot of tourist are making the journey to visit that part of Venice as it is further away!

We had a coffee in a garden and it was lovely. Then we tried to go back to the historic part of Venice and it was a nightmare to catch a vaporetto back. A lot of people were just cutting the queue and it was so frustrating to have wasted so much time trying to get back!

MummyTravels
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60 responses to “Colourful Venice – Exploring Murano, Burano and Torcello”

  3. Pingback: Spending one day in Florence | Darwin on the rocks and around the world·

  6. Don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but when we were in Burano our guide told a story suggesting why the reason the houses were different colors. Years back, when houses were a similar color, after having a few drinks too many the local fishermen were having trouble finding their own house. I noticed a lot of the doors were unique too…

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    • That is an amazing story!! haha! Love it! I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some element of truth in it but they probably tweak it a bit to make it more interesting (some people also say that every house was painted a different colour to signify the borders of each house because there is no number so it’s linked to your story as well, so they can easily find their house with no number)

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  7. A pity to have a frustrating end to a lovely day – Burano always looks so beautiful, somewhere I wish I had had chance to visit when I was in Venice, I hope still to get there one day. Thanks for linking up with #citytripping

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  8. I’ve been to Venice, but never these islands. They sound more appealing than the old town. I like the idea of wandering round quiet Torcello! #citytripping

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  11. On my one trip to Europe I visited these places (except for Torello) and I also remember being underwhelmed with Murano and even the glass but liking Burano! This was in the days before I had a digital camera, so I have few photos – thus enjoying yours brought back some nice memories! Thanks.

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    • That’s interesting! We were wondering if Murano had a more glorious past and was maybe better to visit a few years ago but by reading your comment it appears not! Burano is lovely and they manage to maintain the charm of this little island despite the tourism.. which is great!

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  12. Glad you were able to escape the historic Venice hordes for a day. So what would be worse: queueing for an hour on Torcello or being in the Piazza San Marco for an hour?! :)

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    • Maybe there were not as well advertised at that time! If you have the chance to go back, it’s really worth it, the atmosphere is really different, more laid back and less stressful. You can really enjoy Venice, and it’s quite romantic as well. Forget about romance on the historic Venice, it’s too packed with people :D

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  18. I would love to go to these islands! I have been to Venice but not to the small islands. Nice to see how you moved around using the vaporetto. I know there are tours doing this route but I would not like to use that option. It is upsetting when people cannot respect lines (or other who are in line). #citytripping

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    • For me, visiting these islands were the highlight of our trip to Venice. It was delightful to see all these colourful houses and we had an amazing meal on Burano. I’m not sure a tour is really necessary, using the vaporetto is quite straightforward but people not queuing is frustrating! Now I have been living in the UK, I’m used to the queue system! :D

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  19. Sorry to hear about the glass museum. I think as you said in your other posts, museums aren’t entirely your thing. They aren’t mine and even if they have history stories, I’d still prefer to spend an hour or so and move on 😊 The houses and the two birds are so cute!

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    • I definitely prefer outdoors experiences, but some museum are really entertaining and sometimes.. I even enjoy myself visiting them ;-) But it’s true.. I always complain about museum, I can see a trend there :D

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    • When you are on the two other islands, Burano or Murano, there are different vaporetto (like bus but on the water) that connect you to the main part of Venice. On Torcello, you have to go back to another island first, like Burano, before getting back to the centre of historic Venice And there is only a boat every 30 minutes to get to Burano and so it takes forever to go back to historic venice.. and people don’t queue like in the uk so they push and go first. We waited almost an hour to go back to Burano and it was a bit frustrating people people were rude.

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