Exploring Venice early in the morning. It was so quiet and deserted.
My boyfriend and I visited the Jewish ghetto. We found a shop selling paintings of cats in Venice!
Had some biscuits that were bought from a bakery there.
Also, we visited on the day of Hanukkah. When we arrived, the Venetian Jews were putting up a menorah in the square. We arrived at the entrance of the Jewish Museum too early. When were finally entered, we did so with a bunch of students who seemed to be on a field trip. Thankfully, they all had to gather in one of the rooms and listen to their guide, and the place was still relatively empty.
The museum covered the history of Venetian Jews and it also provided information about Jewish customs. After that, we found a monument at the square that was built to remember the Jews who were deported to Nazi concentration camps.
I love how you can just enjoy a meal outside! Unlike Singapore, it isn't humid at all. And everything looks so pretty and perfect. I like the brick walls and the flowers on the window sills.
Anyway, we had lunch at an Italian restaurant. We had yummy and crunchy bruschetta as an appetiser and I had carbonara that I could not finish for my main course. Even though it was tasty, it became too cheesy for my liking after a while.
I managed to capture a picture of a seagull in mid-air!
We took the vaporetto back to San Marco. Along the way, we passed the Rialto Bridge again. This time, we were sitting at the back of the vaporetto and we could feel the biting cold air brushing against our cheeks.
I think I am very easily entertained. But you don't get to travel by boat every day, so I enjoyed vaporetto trips very much.
My boyfriend had signed us up for an island tour and our first stop was Murano.
We were treated to a demonstration by a professional glassmaker.
It was really impressive to see how he managed to shape glass! He made a bottle just by rolling the metal stick around and blowing into it a little, as if it was an extremely easy task. After that, he used a pair of metal tongs to shape a glass horse.
We were led to a gallery with all kinds of glassware that came in different shapes and sizes, but they were all too expensive and besides, we didn't plan to decorate our house with glass figurines. After a brief look at the rows of endless, dazzling products, we finally found the exit and explored the island, which was mostly deserted except for a few cats.
These were the first cats I met in Italy! There were not too friendly but they looked adorable! I seemed to have interrupted some sort of meeting and they all stared at me.
Our next stop was Torcello. We had to walk quite a long way in from the pier, past empty playgrounds and abandoned deck chairs, vacant restaurants and lonely cafes, to reach the Church of Santa Maria Assunta.
We did not pay for admission and climb to the top of the bell tower because we were afraid that there would be no time to get back to the boat, and we were thankful that we did not since we were too busy admiring the view around us as well.
Spotted another black and white cat! So cute and fat.
Last stop: Burano. Look at the colourful buildings! Burano was definitely more crowded than the other islands. Unfortunately, the sun had already set by the time we got there, so my pictures may make it seem a little gloomy.
We bought all kinds of souvenirs here, including cookies, magnets, and sweets.
This particular shop sold all kinds of food, and we also had to buy some gelato in Italy, hadn't we?
The dude who scooped our ice-cream accidentally broke the cone or something, so he gave us another one. I think that this is another sign that I should live in a cold country: I eat ice-cream quite slowly compared to the average Singaporean. And it is really annoying for ice-cream to melt quickly, especially if you have sensitive teeth like me. However, in Italy, I could savour gelato slowly.
The other sign was how my nose was unblocked most of the time in Italy. In Singapore last year, my nose was almost always blocked. I either had a blocked nose or a runny one. Thus, I visited Italy practically with a luggage full of packets of tissue paper. I was all ready and I had placed a big packet on my bedside table in every hotel that we travelled to. Yet it turned out that I hardly needed tissues after all!
I simply adored the cute little figures and magnets of colourful houses and boats in Burano. Anyway, that's it for day 2!
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