Venice: Top Five

by Jacob and Xander Lang

1. Glass making on the Island of Murano. Jacob: I studied Dale Chihuly in art class in 3rd grade. He is a well known glass artist. 42 years ago, he went to the same glass-making factory that we visited and studied with the master there.

2. Burano Island

Xander: After the glass blowing factory we went to Burano island. This island is very cool because it has houses of all different colors, (pink, purple, blue, green, etc…) We went to a store that sold lace and bought table cloths and napkins. The island was famous for making lace and they had many stores that sold it but it is a dying tradition. There was only 24 lace makers left on the island, the lace school closed in 1986 and the tradition did not continue. After that we had lunch at a fish place (which wasn’t very good) and continued to our next adventure.

3. Venetian history

Jacob: Venetian history is super cool. There’s a lot of myths with some truth. The huns came down from the north wanting to conquer cities in Italy so the people from the main land came to the Venetian islands and found salt and got very rich then in a couple hundred years they started losing money then Napoleon came and then tourists. There’s a lot of things in between but l only have so much time.

4. Food

Xander: The food in Venice is some of the best in the world. The first night we went to a restaurant called Regina Sconta. It had some great pasta (with truffles) but the best part was the huge platter of steak at the end. The next restaurant was a pretty casual place called Al Nevodi. It wasn’t as good as the first one but still awesome. Especially the tiramisu. The third one was the second best (though there’s a family debate). It was a fish place called Le Testiere. And finally there was another meat place called al Timon. Overall these four meals were some of the best of our lives. No family debate here: the best food came from Italy.

5. Boats

Jacob: In Venice there are no cars, so…BOATS. Venice is made up of hundreds of islands and canals. We took water taxis to get places. There were garbage boats, police boats and ambulance boats. My favourite was the gondolas.