the venetian islands

the venetian islands

• 30 Oct 2023

On a bright and sunny day, I boarded a ferry for my trip to the Venetian islands of Mazzorbo, Burano and Torcello. Somehow I thought I'd be the only one, but the crowd waiting for the boat to Murano soon put an end to that thought. It was standing room only on the ferry both there and back.

First stop was the island of Mazzorbo to visit the Venissa wine resort. 

The grapes planted with their traditional companion, beautiful full bloom roses.

It was love at first sight and I snapped away happily. The only people there were guests of the resort and an Australian couple I met on the ferry.

Mazzorbo is connected to Burano by a bridge so I walked across the bridge and happily snapped away at the multi-coloured buildings for which Burano is known.

There were a few other people around but not many or so I thought until I rounded a corner to find the main street of Burano jam packed with tourists with hordes of new travellers being disgorged from the ferry. 

I'd been to Burano before and it was nothing like this. I felt so sorry for the locals who have to put up with this 7 days a week during the summer months. 

I also acknowledge that my presence meant I was part of the problem.

I hopped on the ferry to Torcello, my next destination, then discovered the ferry had changed it's route and instead of going to Torcello was returning to Murano. That added an hour to the journey so by the time I arrived at Torcello, it was midday, the sun was high and the island relatively unsheltered and hot! Thankfully I had a hat and water.

I'd planned to have lunch at Torcello but the food at the place I'd bookmarked looked underwhelming so I walked on to see the church for which Torcello is famous. 

Part of the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta was covered in scaffolding, and I was a bit grumpy from the machinations of the trip there. One does get a bit of church fatigue in Europe so I used my last few euros for a bathroom stop instead of seeing the church interiors. 

I'm guilty of doing insufficient research on Torcello and in retrospect I should have seen the mosaics for which the church is famous. Hopefully there will be another trip to Venice in the future. 

That's the last of my holiday snaps. My black and white films scans have arrived back from the lab so I'll post a few of them when I have time to edit them.

See you all again soon.

Bye for now,

Jillian