Happy New Year!

It didn't look like this yesterday!

The plan to usher in 2013 at St Mark's Square never happened. I woke up at 730am on January 1 apparently sleeping through fireworks blasting away. I also slept through the children waking up at 6am. By the time I had enough neurones functioning to make a coherent sentence, the children had been fed. Hurray for grandparents!

The tour that was advertised as running on New Years Day...was not. So we detoured to go up the  San Marco Campanile. It was supposed to open at 930am. However, the person manning the tower had decided that the fog would render any trip up the tower useless so kept the tower closed! By 950am, we were still waiting...

We decided to abandon ship and visit the island of Burano instead. After a long discussion on which vaporetto ticket would be most economical, we decided upon the 36 hour pass which would give us flexibility to visit the other islands should time permit and would also get us to the train station tomorrow. We were then approached by a man who offered us a free private taxi ride to one of the glass making factories on the island of Murano with no obligation to make any purchase. We were warned of scams but as we had transport tickets already, we thought we had nothing to lose. The vaporettos were not going to run for another hour anyway. It was a great decision! We had a free ride through the smaller canals of Venice, saved ourselves time and got to visit Murano. Upon arrival at the factory, we were given a short demonstration of glass making and then let loose in the showroom. The glass works were stunning. I actually enjoyed looking at the various pieces and the children managed to avoid breaking anything. I bought myself some Murano glass earrings and then we walked out to make our way to Burano.

Formulating a plan of attack

Going through the canals of Venice in fog

Murano

Little fish were more fascinating

We had to wait for quite a while for the right vaporetto to take us to Burano. And once it arrived, it seemed like the ride took forever. Burano was a delightful burst of colour which would have been even more spectacular without the dreary fog. It was freezing! Jonah asked for his gloves to be put on him and my father in law who never feels the cold was chilled to the bones. There were surprisingly shops open and we wandered around the pretty island. Lunch was another delicious affair with some spaghetti vongole. It was a fight not to have young Jonah devour my lunch.

Waiting for the vaporetto

Fog still there

Yay! We're at Burano

The amazing colours of Burano which would be stunning in good weather

Milk jug at lunch

Snacks from the local bakery

The sun!

And the colours started to pop out!

Look what we found...

Return of the fog...leaning tower

Looking for the vaporetto stop

Still looking for the vaporetto stop

We arrived back in Venice and got lost walking back to our apartment...Everyone was relieved to be back in the warm. Little feet were tired and everyone was cold. By this time it was close to 5pm. Grandpa cooked pasta and pesto and then it was time to relax. All in all, a great way to spend the first day of the year!