Murano Glass and Gam Gam (Honeymoon Day 2)

We woke up late, recovering from our travels. The night before, we had paid for the B&B's 5 euro breakfast. Very disappointing breakfast. All prepackaged rolls and packaged cakes. We had apples and toast. Tomorrow, we will treat ourselves to a better breakfast. After breakfast, we relaxed in our room. At 1pm, we left our hotel for a tour Elisha had prearranged. The tour was to the famous glass town/island of Murano and nearby Burano. We walked from the hotel to a meeting place about 15 minutes away. The area we were staying is extremely touristy, so we passed through many people selling trinkets, fake purses and women selling photograph opportunities in their oversize dresses. One shocker was seeing one of the woman squat down to sit and smoke a cigarette. Murano was unbelievable. We were lucky enough to get to tour the New Murano Gallery, which specializes in glass blowing. We got to see a demonstration, where the glass master made a horse and a vase. See the glass master literally make a horse out of thin air below:

 The skill was awesome to see. But their showroom was incredible.  

We were told we would get a 30 %  discount for coming to the shower room with our group. The pieces were very high quality and beautiful ( no photography allowed). Many pieces cost my salary and much much more.  The pictures below are from the demo room.

 

Needless to say, we did not buy anything. Tremendous to see it though. The coolest piece we saw was a glass globe with a base frame around it. 

We did get few from the showroom though...

After the glass tour, we walked around for a little bit and then got back on the ferry for our next stop: Burano. Burano is famous for its lace shops and we also toured one of the lace shops on this colorful island. The lace, which can be used in everything from baby clothes to tablecloths is very nice, but we felt like guests wouldn't appreciate it..overall, we felt like Burano was pretty boring. It was about 30-45 ferry ride back to our starting point in Venice. By the time we got back, it had started to rain, and we thought it would be better to just go back to the B&B and change into something more appropriate for the weather. On our way home, we bought boxed wine and frozen veggies from Coop to avoid paying for an expensive side of veggies.  We used the toaster oven and aluminum tins to cook the veggies, while our next door neighbor made Ramen in its bag (lol!). We changed into our rain gear and ventured out to find a Venetian restaurant with good Yelp reviews.  When we got to the restaurant, we were faced with a little sticker shock. Faced with the proposition of paying 30 euros each (plus cover), we ditched the restaurant and ventured out to find a better deal. 


After no luck--many restaurants were very similar--we decided to go to Gam Gam, a kosher restaurant that was recommended by a friend who had been to Venice a month ago. It must have been about 9pm when we decided to go to Gam Gam and it was a 25 minute walk, which we had to do quickly with the restaurant closing at 10pm.  We arrived at the restaurant only to find the door locked and a staff member cleaning it. When we knocked on the door (it was only 9:37), we were directed to the side door. We went around the corner where we were greeted by Shachar, the restaurant owner,  who invited us for a Shavout meal. We were a little early, so we had time to get to know Shachar, a native New Yorker, who grew up in Florida and married a Venetian. We came to learn that Shachar and her husband not only operated the restaurant, but also the Venice Chabad and a Yeshiva. Very impressive. We got to know a few of the other attendees. Some Jewish geography ensued and we learned that the young woman across from us was a cousin of Lisa Banoff's, one of our close friends.


 The food was delicious: A BBQ salmon spread, challah, chicken broth,  slow cooked chicken and veggies. It was a great meal and great to see that they created a Jewish community where one did not exist. Where ever you go, there's always someone Jewish!