 steventilly's Venice Travelogues | | | |
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| Page Views: 1,790 Last Visit to Venice: - | The Islands Of The Lagoon by steventilly - last update: Sep 11, 2002 |
There are many islands in the Venetian lagoon, other than those of Venice itself. Some are private, some are unused, some are purely for agriculture, but others make a fascinating and essential destination for a visit. The main islands that you can visit are Lido, Murano, Burano (and Mazzorbo) and Torcello. Lido lies to the south of Venice, across St Marks basin, the others all lie to the north. |
On the seaward side of the island at Malomocco is this small but beautiful cemetary. The seaward coast here is not very attractive - mainly granite boulders piled high as a defence against the sea. |
There are a few roadside cafes along the way. This one was at the northern end, and we had panini & beers here on more than one occasion. It was a very friendly and quite lively little stopping point and played some pretty wicked (and mainly reggae) tunes! |
There are some pretty plush houses and villas on Lido. |
At each end of the island is an enormous finger of land streching out into the sea. These are tidal breaks, part of Venice's defence against the sea (a defence that no longer seems to be winning). This one is at the northern end, and is some 2k long. There is a path right out to the end of it. I guess it might be quite pleasant out there on a sunny day - it was nice the bit I walked, which was nowhere near all the way out! |
Burano Burano is a captivatingly beautiful little island. It's quite densely populated and is filled with canals lined with multi-coloured cottages. The legend says that they are painted this way so that fishermen could recognise their house from out at sea. The fact is, most of the houses are inland and can't be seen from the sea anyway! |
Burano is famous for lace, and the first thing to greet you when you get off the boat is a street of shops (or even houses) selling lace. I initially thought "oh, this is pretty" and thought that was about all that Burano had to offer. I was very wrong. |
After you get past these lace sellers you get into Burano proper. It's a myriad of intersecting canals lined with colourful houses and boats and crossed by picturesque bridges. |
Even that is not the end of it though. One of the most dramatic sights on Burano is it's church, with its precariously leaning bell tower. |
Lido Lido is basically Venice's "Holiday Resort". It has a beach which faces out into the ocean, rather than into the lagoon, and it was once a very fashionable destination with the rich, the famous and of course with royalty. Get to Lido by taking any one of a number of vaparettos that call there (you can even make a real trip of it by going via the northern lagoon islands and the Punta Sabbioni, but this will take almost 2 hours). The quickest route is straight across from near St Marks, about 10 minutes. The boats from Venice stop near the main street of Lido - this is quite nice and has a sort of mediterranean feel to it. The views back to St Marks are very pleasant. |
And then there is the picturesque main square, right in front of the church. On this square is the lace museum. |
The main street is lined with nice shops and cafes - the first shop at the right here has a superb ice cream selection. I had "Tiramisu" and "Zuppe Inglese" ("trifle") - both in one cone! They were superb, and both had the soft sponge fingers that you would expect in the real thing! |
The main street again, looking from top to bottom. |
This is the coloured house on Burano. I think the owner has gone a little overboard with the colouration :-) |
Our favourite place to eat on Burano (and maybe in the whole of Venice) was here - Pizzeria Trattoria Leon Coronato, at the end of the main street near Piazza Galuppi. It's just a simple pizzeria/trattoria - don't expect world class food. But it was nice and rustic, the staff were lovely and very friendly, and the wine was cheap. And you can sit and watch all of Burano take their passagatia (evening walk). It closes about 8:30pm. |
Mazzorbo Mazzorbo is right next to Burano and is joined to it by a wooden bridge near the ferry stop. It's a sort of "rural suburb" of Burano, if you like. There is a scattering of houses, gardens, orchards, vineyards and vegetable plots. There is also a trattoria near the ferry stop which seemed to hold quite erratic opening hours. This pic is looking back to Burano from Mazzorbo. |
The church on Mazzorbo, Santa Caterina. |
Torcello Torcello is now a very quiet Island - there are only 60 or so resident left, though the population was once 20,000. If you time your visit so that you're not with a crowd of other tourists you can almost have the place to yourself - as we did on our visit. This is the walk from the ferry stop to the historic centre of Torcello, along Torcello's only navigable canal. |
Wild flowers grow by the side of the canal... |
At the centre of Torcello is the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta. This was the first cathedral of Venice. |
There are a lot of nice hotels on Lido, and some quiet little canals too. |
There are other relics in the centre. This is Atilla's Throne - Atilla the Hun is supposed to have sat here. Well, here's a-Tilly the Hun :-P |
There are other buildings there too, most appearing to serve as museums of some sort or other. |
The tombs make a handy place to sit and eat a picnic. Is that a bit irreverand of us? :-S |
There is a good hotel and restaurant on Torcello. It's the Locanda Ciriani, and it's in the famous Cipriani chain. Next time we're in Venice we'll spend (at least) one night here. |
Funny Story (maybe) While we were there Italy played their first game in the 2002 world cup finals. The guy who looks after the toilets had set up a TV by the entrance to the toilets, so that he could watch the football in between work. Well, most of the other stall holders and shop keepers wandered over and were watching the football too. Our friend Carolyn went to the loo while this was happening and when Italy scored there was a mighty cheer - which was disconcerting for Carolyn as she wondered just what all the cheering was for! |
Murano I have to say right here that I wasn't too taken with Murano. By the time we got there though we had already spent all day on Torcello, Burano and Mazzorbo, so maybe I was a bit jaded. And certainly after Burano Murano just seemd a bit "dull". Murano is the nearest of the Nothern Lagoon Islands to Venice. It's about 20 minutes crossing from the Fondamenta Nuova, and there is a dedicated service which stops at a variety of places within Murano, as well as the Northern Lagoon circular route. |
Of course Murano is famous for its glass, and the place is crammed full of glass works and glass shops. |
There are also some very big and very expensive hotels! The hotels own much of the beach, and it is expensive to pay to go onto them. |
A cat relaxes on a shop windowsill. |
There ARE some quite pretty canals, fondamenta and bridges, and some nice buildings too. |
I think it was just too late in the day for us. When we go back again, I'll give Murano another try. |
S. Michele This is the cemetary island of Venice. It sits just offshore from Fondamenta Nuova and you can visit (the regular boat to Murano calls there). I'm sure it will be quite "interesting". We intended to take a look, but never had the time. Maybe next time. |
An alternative is the "public private beach", which you still have to pay for, but it's cheaper than the hotel beaches. These pay beaches all have some facilities, like loungers, umbrellas, drink/ice cream vendors, even showers and loos. |
The cheapest alternative is the totally public beach at the nothern end of the island. Be aware though that it's not the best of beaches - we were rather disappointed to be honest. Didn't stop the "hotties" turning out to catch the sun though :-) |
A fun thing to do on Lido is to hire a bike and cycle the length of the island. There's a number of quite intersting things to see (mostly on the lagoon side rather than the "sea" side, so stay over to that side as much as you can). |
This is Malamocco, a small village some way along the island. It was once the capital of the Venetian lagoon (in about 800ad). |
From The promenade at Malamocco you can see out to the island of Povelglia, just offshore. |
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 Comments for steventilly about Venice | | | | |
NeeNaVal Wed Aug 2, 2006 09:17 UTC
You have some amazing pictures and some really great information, much more than the usual tourist stuff. I envy the time you were able to spend to really get to know Venice... :) | jennwerner Thu Jun 22, 2006 21:21 UTC
Wow does the streets get flooded in August? Will feet always get wet. I love your site by the way. Will be in Venice 2 days in early August | skywalkerbeth Mon Jun 12, 2006 02:37 UTC
wow, great pages! how did you get 41 photos on one page though, I thought 8 was the maximum? | budapest8 Wed Nov 2, 2005 22:16 UTC
Nice tips about Venice with some interesting facts. I was here on a school trip as a lad and got lost, hitched back to our camp site and fell asleep in our tent while the cops were scouring the canals with my school chums...Tim |
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