Venice

  Venice was beautiful with its canals, boats and bridges.  We arrived at night time amongst all the colourful lights and all the markets and shops were open selling food, masks, lollies and lots of Murano glass.  We got to our apartment which was quite big compared to the hotel we were staying in Rome.

  One night it snowed great big snowflakes that got all over our jackets and in our hair.  When the snowflakes got even bigger we came down the stairs of our apartment to look outside at the snow and the people in the cafe opposite us were laughing because we were in our pyjamas and dad was in his shorts and t-shirt.

We had a boat ride to Murano Island where they make Murano glass.  We  saw a man making a glass vase and a horse ornament.  The glass is made from fine sand called silica.  They then add coloured beads to make patterns in the glass and gold to some pieces. In the sixteenth century all the glass makers in Venice were made to move to Murano island because the government was worried that all their fires would burn the city down.  The glass makers were not allowed to move from the island because the authorities did not want their glass making secrets to get out.  The glass makers were held in very high esteem because of the art of their trade.  Their daughters were married into good families and the sons continued on their families trade.  Eventually some of them moved and took their glass making secrets with them.  This type of glass making is all handmade with a metal pipe that can be blown in and tools that help shape the artwork, it is very expensive because of the time it takes.

There were heaps of dogs in Italy, people took them on trains, boats, buses and even in shops and cafe's.  They were cute, one had one brown eye and one blue eye - some even had jumpers and Christmas coats on!

On the morning we left Drew and I had a pastry and a hot chocolate which was thick like chocolate mousse and we had to eat it with a spoon - it was delicious!!!  Hannah