Ok I interrupt this Italian diatribe to note that there should be something called Mass etiquette. Per esempio (thought I’d throw in the foreign lingo…why not?):
Yesterday I cringed as an older gentleman directly behind me hacked, sneezed and blew his way through Mass, then at the sign of peace reached out his hand to infect everyone around him.

Ugh. And I’m (truly) not one who is paranoid about germs. (In fact, my theory is the more you worry about getting something, the more likely it will sneak in to sabotage your immune system.)

BUT there is a limit to sharing one’s disease without a second thought. (I suspect even the priest would prefer if the man recovered at home before bestowing blessings of peace to the congregation. I do recall Father Don recommending never to put holy water under a microscope…)

Ok done w/ my diatribe (next time it will be nose pickers on the tube – just kidding!).

Back to Italy…

Our Christmas Eve started off with a lie-in (love that British expression for sleeping in). We did scramble to make the hotel breakfast before it closed at 10 – breads, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit, cheese and prosciutto – all in a dining room looking out onto Saint Mark’s Cathedral. Not bad.

Our agenda for the morning: a 10:30 excursion to Murano, where they make the famed glass. It was an overcast day – warmer than when we landed, though, so it felt good to stand on the boat and be windblown as we were motored over. Lovely lights were sprinkled throughout the bay, think fancy streetlights.

Twenty minutes later we were delivered to the glass factory, the kids lifted in and out of the boat by our competent, friendly Italian boat driver. (Does one captain a motorboat?)

We entered a toasty warm workshop with huge ovens in back, a furnace closer to us and a “master” at work. He illustrated how he makes objects d’arte from a bright orange blog of melted sand. The sand is, incidentally, very fine, a cheap, local raw material.

Clearly the orange blob was very hot and malleable – he used a long iron handle to hold it away from him and metal tongs with which to shape it. One object he made quickly before us was a vase, which he blew into to create.

The second piece he made was a horse with rainblow-colored mane.

Apparently to yield color in the glass other metallic properties are mixed with the sand. How they blend to create color is often a surprise to the master, as they appear clear until fired.

I think we were told it takes two days for the glass to cool completely after the firing process.

From the workshop we were escorted into a dozen rooms of the mega showroom. No shortage of items to buy (from dishes and wall art to vases and any kind of figuring you might imagine). The “Masters” – about 15 of them currently – are all men living on the island. Each has continued a family legacy of glass art work, something Murano has been famed for since 1291.

Apparently the island was a commercial port dating to the 7th Century, and by the 10th Century it had grown into a prosperous trading center with its own coins, police force and commercial aristocracy. In 1291 the Venetian Republic ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano because the glassworks represented a fire danger in Venice, whose buildings were mostly wooden at the time.

Murano's glassmakers became the leading citizens on the island and were granted the right to wear swords and immunity from prosecution by the high-handed Venetian state. By the late 14th Century the daughters of glassmakers were allowed to marry into Venice's blue-blooded families. (Per my web research, this is apparently the equivalent of Archie Bunker's daughter being invited to wed a Cabot or a Peabody – LOL!)

BUT glassmakers could not leave the Republic, threatened w/ assassination or having his hands cut off by the secret police (apparently in reality most defectors weren't treated so harshly).

What made Murano's glassmakers so special? For one thing, they were the only people in Europe who knew how to make glass mirrors. They also developed or refined technologies such as crystalline glass, enameled glass (smalto), glass with threads of gold (aventurine), multicolored glass (millefiori), milk glass (lattimo), and imitation gemstones made of glass. Their virtual monopoly on quality glass lasted for centuries, until glassmakers in Northern and Central Europe introduced new techniques and fashions around the same time that colonists were emigrating to the New World.

How’s that for cool?

Claire unfortunately got too close and personal with a small horse statue that she didn’t realize was a lot heavier than it looked (some of these pieces are really weighty). It met its demise.

After much deliberation we purchased a colorful clown that we’ll see back in London sometime in the new year. No need to shlep that heavy chunk of art around Italy! The kids also received small gifts of little clear glass horses like those made during the demo.

Incidentally, we were told each piece has to be completed from start to finish on the same day, while the glass is hot and malleable…no setting it aside and reheating.

Back to Venice we then went, leaving off the horses at the hotel. We marched off to find lunch, taking a quick walk through Saint Mark’s first (we’d neglected the main body of the church the previous day, having had enough cathedral time and not enough food!).

The building is truly amazing. Appropriately, a gorgeous glass nativity secene was on display.

One point on San Marco – everywhere you turn you’re being nickled and dimed, 3 euros to see the treasures, 2 for an upclose view of the altar (they even have a turnstyle nearby to ensure you don’t sneak a close peak!).

No doubt our monsignor in North Carolina would have been able to build the church sooner if he’d charged everyone admission to see…what? The gym floor in the temporary church?!? Not as powerful attraction as Venice’s riches, I guess.

For lunch we found another bar for sandwiches and pizza, then meandered through the streets and over bridges to another part of town, where the Guggenheim is (en route we found small cannolis and tiramisu bites, delish!).

The Guggenheim -- fabulous place; I highly recommend it.

The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Léger, Brancusi, Severini, Picabia, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Miró , Giacometti, Klee, Ernst, Dalí, Pollock and more…

The museum is supposedly the ”most important museum in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century.”

Claire and I did the audio guide tour, which was very well done, I might also add.

After wandering back through the rain (not much more than a heavy sprinkle, though Italians w/ umbrellas were out in full force, as were all the umbrella hawkers) we landed at the hotel to relax before dinner.

The walking platforms were being set up as made our way back; high water was expected. When we headed to dinner, a restaurant we’d been recommended to try by two different Venetians, we saw shop owners boarding their doorways to prevent water encroachment.

Dinner was at Aciugheta, a casual little restaurant in the corner of a nearby square – brick interior with kitchen and bar in the middle. I had a delicious tagliatelle dish (black noodles) with squid, zucchini and tomatoes. The fresh pasta here is fabulous. (Yes, there is a difference, a big one!).

We went to bed wondering what the street outside our hotel would look like in the morning…

Incidentally, the kids love these boardwalks that are left up here and there around San Marco and in other areas where the tide brings water in at night. When I think of Venice I'll remember Claire and Ava running up and down them, dodging the Asian tourists.