Venice, Italy {2}

     On our second day in Venice, we decided to venture out to the surrounding areas, Murano and Burano. Following Rick Steves's advice, we hopped on the vaporetto to Murano around 10am. Murano is known for glass so I was hoping to steal a free look at some of the places doing their thing. We saw one guy in action but I think to see a full on demonstration of glass blowing you have to pay and we just weren't that excited about it to pony up. Personally, I'd skip Murano and head to Lido, which is the beach area of Venice. We did see some really cool glass, though.

     After Murano, we hopped back on the vaporetto and headed to Burano, a colorful little town known for lace. Burano is so adorable and definitely a highlight of our time in Venice. It has a leaning tower which G and I found to be pretty humorous, though I'm not really sure why. There are about 100 pictures of that leaning tower, which I will spare you! After walking around Burano for awhile, we stopped for our first pizza of the trip at a restaurant called Ai Pescatori. The pizza was really good, salame piccante (pepporoni) for G and proscuitto pizza for me. We also had a liter of vino della casa, which we later learned is not a good choice because you have no clue what's actually in it! 

my favorite house on Burano 

     Later that afternoon, we returned to Venice proper and stumbled upon the church of Santa Maria Assunta. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the church but it is absolutely stunning. It it grandiose and contains tons of frescoes (shocking for a church in Italy, ha). It is located in the Cannaregio area, not that I could tell you how to get there but if you look at a map of Venice that area would be labeled. I would definitely recommend visiting this church while in Venice!

     We also took a gander through the Church of the Saint Apostles, located not far from Santa Maria Assunta. Also beautiful but not quite as visually stunning as S. Maria Assunta. No photos allowed in there either. 

     Our last stop of the day was Ca'd'Oro ("golden house"), which is one of the older palaces in Venice, overlooking the Grand Canal. We browsed through some beautiful but also weird art work and took in the view of the canal from the balcony of Ca'd'Oro. 

     

     We had wine and tiramisu at Bancogiro before heading back to our hotel, where I took a nap (which I did every single day of the trip). On our long, winding walk (our meandering walks through the streets of Venice was probably one of my favorite things, there are so many little canals and bridges to be seen) back to the hotel we spotted this restaurant Tavenra da Baffo, so we headed back there later that night. Unfortunately, the food was pretty forgettable with the exception of the sauteed clams and mussels we had to start, those were delicious! The restaurant was also near closing when we arrived which could account for the so so food. 

I know reading other people's vacation posts can be pretty boring so if you made it this far, I'm virtually toasting you! I'll space these out so there not happening everyday!