Venice by boat

Venice is really a city on the water and the canals replace streets in all respects. There are passenger ferries, ambulance boats, police boats, private boats, water taxis, construction boats, gondolas and even the occasional hoon. Walking is the only other option to going by boat.
We bought an all day ticket to explore a few of the 117 islands that make up Venice.
Murano is famous for the production of Venetian glass. We saw a glass blowing demonstration and they make it look so easy. Of course there are glass shops and glass jewellery and all sorts of souveniers everywhere. But it is very nice. Next we motored over to Burano famous for lace making and restaurants. These islands are similar to Venice with canals and bridges but a bit less built up and some of the houses are painted in attractive, bright colours. It is all very tourist oriented though and felt like we were a commodity they had to deal with. Next was Torcello with an old monastry, but by this stage we were all a bit worn out from walking and tourist sites. The boat back took about 1 1/2 hours but we got to see Venice in the setting sun and it was great for photography. After some pasta for dinner we thought we would try one more boat trip down the Grand Canal through the centre of Venice. It was very pretty and stopped at the Piazza San Marco where we saw 3 classical groups battle it out for the crowds’ attention. The problem was the boats were slow and very crowded and we didn’t get back to the bus stop to go home until the last bus, so we had to end our day by getting a taxi home and taxis can demand any price they like at that time of night.