Apologies for the small size but this was the only useable photo I could find of our lunch restaurant, Busa alla Torre. It comes highly recommended, and service is very friendly. The restaurant sits by the main canal in Murano, with lots of outdoor seating, which almost never happens in Venice. The day was unusually hot, though, so being outdoors wasn't particularly pleasant. The restaurant specializes in seafood (surprise!) and the menu looked pretty good, but the waiter was so excited about this great quality fish they had just caught so I ordered that. Because it was such great quality, they didn't want to do anything to it, so it just came steamed, which is about the most boring way you can eat fish, no matter how good the quality. Somchai liked his more interestingly prepared food though. Food-11, Decor-7, Service-13.

Because of the risk of fire, all the glassmakers in Venice were moved to Murano in the thirteenth century. Venice guarded its supremacy in glass jealously, through a stick and carrot combination. The glassmakers were paid well, and allowed autonomy on their new home of Murano. Also, if the child of a glassmaker married into one of Venice's ruling families (as listed in the Golden Book, remember?) their children could be entered in the book as well. As for the stick, the glassmakers were forbidden to leave Murano, because the rest of Europe was constantly trying to bribe them to leave and teach them the secrets of the trade. Venice maintained a team of assassins, who hunted down any glassmaker who foolishly agreed to set up shop elsewhere. They took glassmaking very seriously back then.



Nowadays, most of the glass sold in Murano is tourist schlock, largely imported from Asia. But the remaining studios like Venini and Salviati are still known as the world's best glassmakers. We bought a couple of pieces from Venini, which was fairly stupid because we then had to carry the heavy glass with us for the rest of the day.

We spent the next day on the waterbus, visiting three islands off the coast of Venice, Murano, Burano and Torcello. First stop was Murano, which is by far the most famous due to its worldwide fame as glassmaker par excellence. The boat trip takes about a half hour, and dropped us off in the bustling little harbor town. The town is centered around a canal, and, just like the motherland, the wealthiest families lined the canal with their family palaces. The rest of the island is taken up by glassmaking furnaces, which provided the riches to build the canalside palaces.