Murano is a beautiful island off the coast of Italy, just a short boat ride from Venice. Murano glass is world famous. The island’s glass works have been hand-blowing beautiful and intricate pieces of glass art for centuries. It is home to the oldest continuously operating glass factory in the world, the Vecchia Murano Glass Factory, where you can still go and see demonstrations by master glass blowers. The second picture below (the vase and the horse) were hand blown and shaped during our visit. It is an amazing thing to watch these master craftsmen at work. Don’t miss it!

I had been to Murano once before, on a family trip to Italy in 2005. Italy has fallen victim to overtourism in the intervening years, and that is very evident in the major tourist cities like Venice and Rome, which we will cover in another post. I am happy to report that Murano was exactly as I remembered it from 20 years earlier. It is a wonderful place to escape the crowds and long lines in Venice and just enjoy strolling and exploring this beautiful island. We walked along the canals, stopped and shopped at several glass shops, listened to a street musician creating beautiful music with variously filled glasses of water, and had some delicious gelato at Murano’s number one gelato shop. It was like stepping back in time to the way Venice was before the crowds. So, for those of you who need a break from standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other tourists at St. Mark’s Cathedral or the Doge’s Palace, Murano may be just what the doctor ordered. Hop on a water taxi and take the short trip to Murano. For us, it was like an oasis in the desert of overtourism.