It is always fascinating to see real craftsmen at work and so when we visited Murano on one of our days in Venice we made a point of visiting one of the many glass workshops where we watched one of the artisans at work.
In the first image you can see the molten glass glowing orange, it was around 1200 degrees celcius and it was almost magical as we saw it transformed from a glowing lump into a delicate bowl and in the next image as a long necked vase was created.
The sand had been extracted from a quarry in Fontainbleu (France) and had been heated overnight to become a pliable liquid and then in the hands of a skilled artist it was blown and twisted into so many different objects. We watched as in less than a minute he crafted a prancing horse. His colleague explained that it may only have taken 30 seconds to make, but it had taken 30 years to master the skill.
Walking back to get the vaporetto back to the main island we passed another workshop where we spotted the guy in the final image. There was a large crowd of people gathered around the entrance all watching intently but even with such a large audience he was totally absorbed in the task at hand.
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