We catch the 19 bus, no crowding today, and get vaporetti tickets at P le Roma. The clerk tells us we need line 12 to the lighthouse then line 3 from there to Burano.
Line 12’s boat is a crowded, older style boat with steps to the inside area but designated wheelchair spaces beside the wheelhouse. That doesn’t suit the other wheelchair passenger, a French woman being pushed around by her husband. He has no idea, firstly coming on forwards and nearly tipping her out, then jamming the wheels between boat and quay, finally parking by the rail and nearly pushing her stick over the side. He might have carried calves in wheelbarrows but we fear for her safety as he ignores all instructions from the crew, not even waiting while they rig the ramp to disembark.
We transfer to the No.3 keeping our distance from homicidal carer as he continues his calf in a wheelbarrow stunts, and enjoy the long ride over open water to the island of Burano.
Burano is famed for lace making and for its colourfully painted houses and once we are away from the noise of the boat engines the harbourside is very peaceful. We take a different direction from the hoards and are soon in narrow back streets where the bright painted walls are draped with vivid red flowers and doors are shaded with striped sun blinds. Monday seems to be wash day but none of the laundry we see suggests the residents go in for local lace, everything is a bit on the ‘industrial’ side of undergarment.
Various smells seep into the lanes, hot soapy washing, cooking fish and coffee. We emerge from a narrow street onto one of the little canals, where there are souvenir shops, restaurants and cake shops. Small cargo punts bob on the water which is disturbed by big boats at the main quay. On the bow of one a cat sleeps, totally uncaring of the passing strangers. We saw sleeping cats in various places as we trundled around. Outside one restaurant a saxophonist is crooning diners with the same tunes we were hearing in Iseo’s restaurant, from the Viva Italia’s 20 Buono Dining Tunes collection.
The houses are all painted in the vibrant, almost dazzling, shades you might find in a child’s palette, vivid yellow with green shutters, sea green with blue shutters, crimson and white, blue and purple. In bright sunshine with a rich azure sky it’s like a colour chart through a polaroid filter.
We stop for lunch, a big salad and a pizza shared between us before heading into the wider, main part of the town. Lace products are for sale everywhere but much of it appears to be framed samples of generic pieces; a gondola, a bridge, small doilies and crosses, all at the €8 to €15 quick souvenir prices. A couple of places offer demonstrations and more genuine looking stuff at the expected higher prices, but much of it is quite tacky compared with what we saw in Pag and Puy en Velay.
At the end of the road is a church with a leaning tower, not as alarming as Pisa, but enough to attract the ‘I’m holding it up’ selfies.
Returning to the boat station we are just in time for the No.3 back to the lighthouse at Faro Murano. It’s a choppy ride across the open water but the island hopping vaporetti are wider and roomier than their canal counterparts and not too crowded. At Faro we have to wait for a quarter of an hour to catch the No.7 back to San Marco but the trip back is a joy. We head a long way out with the lowering sun lighting up the houses of Burano on the horizon. The trip passes the older industrial areas before turning towards the city along the route we entered Venice for the first time on a cruise in 2007, before turning away from the cruise route and into the Grand Canal again.
We land at San Marco san Zaccaria a little way from the Doge’s Palace and buy ice creams. Dozens of traders are out with almost identical stalls selling the same things, their badges and key rings glinting and sparkling in the evening sun. The bridges here have been modified with scaffold ramps over the middle making it easy for wheelers while not spoiling the edges for walkers. The Bridge of Sighs is draped for renovation as we cross, and gondoliers are starting their trade for sunset romantics.
We cross to San Marco just in time for a No.1 which will stop at every point along the Grand Canal. For the first time we are asked for a ticket check, as is every other passenger along the way. The sun drops quickly as we cruise along bringing the buildings to life and reflecting on the gilded lettering and decorations. Grete texts to ask if we should meet for supper but we are already past Rialto nearing the end of our journey.
At P le Roma we see a No.5 bus waiting with open doors and very few on board so we are straight in. A few minutes later the driver arrives and we depart Venice with mixed plans of whether to stay another day.
Crossing the causeway there is an amazing sunset of blue sky changing to rich yellow and orange nearer the horizon, with the industrial structures of the shipyard and refinery silhouetted against it.
We have a few nibbles and a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our time here then a very early night, happy and shattered.
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