A Classical Interlude

 So this will be the last selection of images from Venice for a while, although I will be going back there in a few weeks time so no doubt I will have lots more from my next trip that I will eventually want to share with you. But before I move onto a different location I hope you  will enjoy this selection.

The first image is of a statue of the renaissance composer Balassandre Galuppi who was born on the island of Burano in 1706 and this statue stands in a Piazza named for him. He died in Venice in 1785 aged 78. If you click here you can listen to some of his piano sonatas while you read through the rest of this post and maybe have it on in the background while you do some work or surfing etc.

While Burano is famous for lace making its neighbouring island is famous for the production of glass. The second image shows one of the  any craftsmen who work in the workshops creating beautiful ornaments and glassware. An interesting fact is the sand used in glass production in Murano is imported from the region of France near to Fontainebleau as it has the right mineral qualities.

The other images are of scenes around Venice, including the Grand Canal as well as some of the smaller canals. These were all shot during the evening and the effect of the setting sun on the stonework is quite magical. As this light is reflected on the surface of the smaller canals, where there is less traffic and therefore it is calmer, lots of interesting patterns emerge.

I have been lucky enough to visit this city several times now (in Summer and Winter) and I am very excited to be returning, this time in spring when I hope that I will discover something new.

Craftsmen At Work

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.