Evan & Christina in Europe

Murano

Glassblowing is the craft to be great at here- Murano is an island near Venice, where it is renowned for its glassware.

San Marco, Venice

Piazza San Marco in Venice with all the disease-ridden pigeons… and walking amongst many other craft stores of paper, masks, and lace.

Dinner and a Movie

Like any normal outing, we went for dinner and a movie. The dinner was way overpriced (I thought), and the movie was in Italian.

Murano

Waking up in time for breakfast, we drove to a parking structure near Venice, and took a “bus” to Murano. We walked around the island of Murano, the premier capital of glassblowing. There were tons of shops, selling similar products (chandeliers, animal statues, etc) but with different levels of artistry. The chandeliers would fetch prices of thousands of Euros, and had like seventy hours of work on them. Of course we couldn’t afford any of these. During the Renaissance, glassblowers weren’t allowed to leave the island under the threat of execution, so there is a large conglomerate of amazing glassblowers there today. We ate lunch at a lovely restaurant the guidebook recommended after wandering around a bit (we later learned that the guidebook’s maps were quite inaccurate, and the book didn’t give us any addresses). Then we went to the glass museum, where Evan took lots of pictures to share with his Material Science & History of Stuff professors (Jon Stolk and Rob Martello) from last semester. There were some pretty impressive things, like a gigantic centerpiece of gardens that was intricately made from glass. The rooms were separated by centuries, and there was a room from first century B.C.-first century A.D. A few pieces of 7^th-century A.D. were mixed in as well. This glassware was found during the last century (imagine- having survived two thousand years), some still nicely intact. I don’t think I could make anything even near to these pieces from thousands of years ago… although that’s not saying much. We walked around more, got some gelato (which was nowhere as good as the last place in Rome), and Evan got a present for his parents (it’ll be a surprise!) and for me.

San Marco, Venice

We took the “bus” (clarification- bus on water) to Venice… in particular, San Marco. We walked through the Piazza del San Marco, went to the absolutely stunning basilica, and walked around Venice for a while. I wasn’t particularly happy with all the crowds and the humidity while walking. I found a really cute Snoopy glass statue, a bit overpriced, but I got it anyways. I also found an amazing paper store, and got a small pen with a little bottle of ink, with a tiny notebook. I’m rather happy with that; I’ve always been rather fascinated with paper products- huge fan of Papyrus in the States. There were also gorgeous masks (although I have no use for them), and the craftsmanship on lace is supposedly as incredible as the glass, masks, and paper. I’m not a lace fanatic, thankfully… nor is Evan, although I think he really appreciated the glass.

Dinner and a Movie

Dinner wasn’t as good, and it was overpriced. I think Venice is overpriced in general, and I don’t particularly like it. We didn’t take a gondola ride; we didn’t think it was worth the 100 Euros, and both Evan and I had bug bites already. It began to rain and be a bit stormy on the way back, so I suppose it was a good decision.

We saw a movie theater near our hotel, so we were hoping to catch Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it was dubbed in Italian (it was done rather well, but twas disappointing not to understand some things). I already don’t understand about a quarter of a movie in English without subtitles, so something in Italian without English subtitles wasn’t so great. I think I interpreted enough that I understood it okay- both Evan and I agreed to see it in English later though. The poor girl who was selling the movie tickets couldn’t understand what in the world we were saying in English. Yay for hand gestures! The movie had assigned seating, so fifteen minutes before the movie, it was still entirely empty besides us. It was a strange, strange feeling. I rather like the capitalistic way of doing things- either pay more for good seats or get there early. If we were in a theater in the U.S., and no one else was there, we’d be sitting with prime seats, but we were off to the side a bit. They weren’t terrible seats, but I wasn’t particularly happy. Pirates seemed like a decent, normal summer blockbuster movie- a bit predictable, good CG, and lots of money spent on it.

This entry was published Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 11:34 pm and classified in the category/categories. pirates of the caribbean, san marco, gelato, murano. You can find the comments section from the feed. RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.