Adventures In Italy - Day 2

Stop 3 - Burano, Italy: After seeing Venice the day before, we decided to hop on over to the island of Burano for our second day in Italy. The island was beautiful with brightly colored fisherman's homes lining the canals. Each house had its own "personality" which made our walk around town that much more amazing. As we walked through the town, we talked with the kids about which homes were our favorite and which one we would each pick to be "ours." (Maeli especially liked the pink ones.) Surprisingly, we even found a playground on the island and took some time to let the kids run around. 

Before leaving the town, we made sure to drop in to one of Burano's famous lace shops. There was an elderly Italian woman sitting in a rocking chair sewing some lace who let us watch for a bit. Maeli was in awe and forgot all about personal boundaries as she peeked over the woman's arms to see her work. Although the woman didn't speak any English, we did our best to have a small conversation with her. She told us that her and her family run the shop and spend their days sewing the lace. She showed us a small patch of lacework and told us that a patch of that size usually takes about 5 hours. As we spoke, she told us about her own children who are now grown up. Despite the language barrier, our time with this woman was the perfect intimate experience one could only hope for on a trip to another country. This 5 minute conversation was probably nothing to this woman but it created a special memory for us that will last a lifetime. 

After visiting Burano, we took the ferry back to Venice, walked 30 minutes back to our hotel, and lugged our luggage and kids back through the hundreds of stairs to catch the waterbus back to our car. After getting everything packed back up, we drove to Venice to check in to our hotel. We missed the check-in hours and had to wait at the gate of the hotel until someone came along to call the owner. After making the call, we waited another half an hour for the owner to drive up and let us in. As tired as they were, the kids loved getting to stay up past 10pm and were in good spirits the entire time.