Usually when I book a trip, I start by choosing my destination then book travel and accomodation, and only then do I start to decide exactly what I want to do in that place. Venice was the first city this didn’t work that well for, when I realised Burano existed and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to go. Unfortunately, we were arriving too late on the Saturday to get to Burano, and public transport (the water buses) weren’t running there on a Sunday at all. It seemed we wouldn’t be visiting Burano and I got really sad.
Why Burano?
Burano, a little island about an hour from the main part of Venice, is full of streets lined with colourful houses, and I knew it would be a dream to photograph. It’s also famous for it’s lace making, but for me the colourful houses were the reason for visiting Burano. Fun fact-legend has it that the houses were painted so fishermen could find their way home in the fog!
Why Murano?
Honestly, I wasn’t that fussed about Murano. It’s famous for it’s glass making, but you can buy Murano glass all over Venice. I would have skipped it, but we got an hour there on our tour and it was nice to walk around anyway. I did enjoy looking at the amazing glass pieces in the Murano shop windows.
How easy is visiting Burano?
Most days, you can take the public waterbuses from central Venice to Burano. It takes about an hour and a half, which is why we couldn’t do that on Saturday-we just didn’t have time. So we knew we’d need to go on the Sunday, our one full day in Venice, if at all.
We thought this was going to be impossible, as the Burano water bus doesn’t run on a Sunday. I’d looked online and hadn’t found a way to get there, and had already decided I wanted to go so badly I’d need to come back to Venice in the future.
Then when we were leaving the city by bus on Saturday night to head to our hotel near the airport, we saw a tour company doing a half day boat tour to Burano and Murano. Frustratingly, the man behind the counter insisted they were closed and wouldn’t tell us anything about the next day’s tour, so we planned to come back and have a look in the morning. I still wasn’t sure we’d get there at this point.
J looked online and found a Getyourguide tour for 25 euros each, covering both Murano and Burano over a 4 and a half hour period. We knew we’d have enough time on the Sunday to fit that in, so we booked it. Turns out visiting Burano on a Sunday is not as impossible as I’d thought.
How long do you need to spend visiting Burano?
If you’re visiting Burano, you really won’t need more than a couple of hours to walk around. If you’d like to eat there, allow yourself three hours and you’ll have plenty of time. The island is small and you’ll have walked every street in a couple of hours.
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