Yea good breakfast buffet!  Today we planned a trip to Murano to see the glass.

We hopped on our waterbus to the island, which was quiet and quaint.  When we got there, I led us past the barking glass-blowing carnie that EVERYONE followed – and on to a better tour.   We found a great little glass-blowing demonstration with hardly anyone there.   Really informative and amazing!  The furnace was 1,200 degrees, and the cooling furnace was 500 degrees!  It takes 15-20 years of apprenticeship before one truly masters the craft.  We watched him make a horse and a pitcher.  So cool!  Once the horse was finished, the apprentice held a piece of newspaper up to it and the paper immediately went up in flames!  He then put it in the 500 degree cool-down furnace.   His last demonstration was to blow a huge glass bubble and then explode it on the floor, which made poor Georgia jump out of her shoes.  After that, she was DONE with glass-blowing demonstrations.

Following the demo, it was more of our treasured WANDERING.  We sauntered around the interior of the island, where, again, people actually LIVE.  We even managed to get a bit lost, which, as already mentioned, is rather hard to do on such a small island.  Murano is THE place for souvenirs, so we split up after lunch to do some shopping.  The requisite gelato, a waterbus ride back to Venice, and we were back resting in the hotel rooms by late afternoon.

Our final night in Venice.  We decided to walk into the interior of the island and stumble upon the perfect restaurant.  But we kept walking and walking and the perfect restaurant wouldn’t appear!  We were tired.  Nerves were a bit frazzled; e.g., when the children informed us they would soon DIE if we didn’t feed them.  Finally, in a secluded square, we found a great little place – our last Italian sidewalk cafe.  😦  We had a great dinner and laughed a lot.  We didn’t personify any animals from our chosen dishes, but we DID end up with a squid challenge – Ellis (whose self-proclaimed theme for this summer was “try new things”) finally stepped up and ate a fried cephalopod from his “fritto misto” plate.  And by doing so, earned himself his first Facebook account, so y’all go befriend him!

Goodnight Venice!

From that blob….

Into that horse!

Watching intently….

Now he’s moved on to making a vase.

Even after sitting there a while, that horse was still flamin’ hot.  This was BEFORE it went into the 500-degree “cooling” furnace.

Hmmmm…. this is cool, but we are LOST.  This was right before we navigated into a literal dead end.

Ah yes, there’s the dead end.

This was me trying to subtly point out something with my tongue during lunch.  Now, 18 days later, I have no recollection what it was.

The kids found a place for wall-ball on Murano as well.

Another master glass blower; this man’s apprentices were his two sons.

Lampposts in love.

Waiting for the water bus back to Venice.

Kids on their Venice hotel balcony, taken from OUR Venice hotel balcony.

Headed out in search of one last Venice dinner.

The Venetian girls went WILD for him……

Ellis was pretty sure he could walk across.

Ellis’s squid challenge!