Early Sunday morning and I do mean early – 4:30am, a group of us got up to take photos in the first light of the day. The director calls it the “blue hour”. It was so quiet and peaceful. Only crazy photographers like us were there. I got some good or maybe unusual shots might be a better description. Hope I can download some for this blog. I am planning on making an on-line album of my trip so you can look for the album link on this blog coming in the near future. I took an interesting photo of a long walkway with columns and of course more gondola pictures at the water’s edge. We had a good time and finally left around 7am. As we walked through the streets, we found a cafe and enjoyed cappuccino and I had a spinach pie which was very good.
We then returned to our hotel. I took a shower and got ready to go to breakfast. After breakfast, most of us went back to bed. As usual, I had a lot to do on my computer – catching up with e-mails, photos, etc. We met for lunch and I had a pizza – tomatoe sauce and pizza dough – no cheese. It was a bit strange. I like American pizza a lot better. The waiters were a bit gruff and surly but we just laughed it off. There is one older lady and I dread sitting next to her because she never stops talking. Every thing she says has a story that goes on and on and on. I swear my eyes started glazing over listening to her. She never asks you a question so it is more of a lecture than a conversation. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
After lunch, we went back to get our gear and made our way to the vaporetto for the trip to Burano. It was raining a little and very cloudy. I had my tripod, raincoat and jacket, my camera bag. Just too much to carry. I need to get a backpack for trips like this. The trip took about an hour. When we got there we all split up and agreed to meet for coffee at 4:30. Lynn (Australian), Jim (single guy) and I sat and had a coffee before we started looking around. I needed something to keep me awake. I also had some kind of pizza bread. I didn’t eat it all so put it in my bag. We finished and went our separate ways. Every house is painted in a bright color and all have different flowers in their windows and window boxes.
Lots of canals and all sorts of interesting walkways to explore. It started to rain in earnest, but it didn’t stop us from taking photos. I really enjoyed myself and got some interesting photos. There are tons of cats on the island. They must have sent all the cats from Venice there as I saw only one or two cats in Venice. Anyways, I was patient and got some fun shots of these two cats looking through window blinds. Later, I sat quietly while this black cat gave herself a bath while I tried to get it to stop and look up.
There were lots of little shops – glass jewelry, masks, lace dresses, tablecloths and tons of knick knacks. I didn’t do any shopping but I did some serious looking! Someone mentioned that there was a swan in one of the canals so I went to find it. It was there swimming around. I took a ton of photos. I sat on a step of a house that was for sale. There was an overhang so I got out of the rain. It was great fun watching the local people and taking swan photos. I shared my bread with him and he came quite close. There were lots of boats in the canal so they were good backdrops for the swan. I probably sat there for an hour.
I met everyone for a coffee. Then we all went walking to this restaurant. It was a 15 min. walk and we were the only ones there. The service was not great. One guy asked for two different things and ended up not getting anything. I had some noodles and arugula plus a glass of beer. When we walked back I went with Magrit (director’s wife) and Jim(single guy plus the elderly couple. We didn’t see where the rest of the group went and we walked the wrong way and came to a dead end and then had to go all the way back to get out. It was a lovely area – with little farms and tons of flowers and vegetable gardens. It was dark when we got back. We had decided ahead of time that we were staying to photograph the “blue hour”. We got our cameras and tripods ready. There was no one around – all the Sunday tourists had gone home. Time flew by and pretty soon it was 9:15pm so we had to get the vaporetto back to Venice.
It was a fantastic day!
Well, it is one in the morning and here I am. No plans in the morning that I know of. I plan to shop a bit and then we are returning to Borano but just for a few hours and to take a some more night shots. Today is Tuesday and tomorrow is the last day. I take the train to Basel, Switzerland at 6:45am the next day, Thursday. I still have a couple of days to write about. Everything is kind of running together about now. Hopefully, I will finish tomorrow night after we return from Borano.
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