Celebrating in Italy! Lost in Venice Part 2

When you think of Venice, what are the things that come to mind? Probably things like beautiful masks worn for the carnival, amazing gothic architecture, famous bridges, and romantic canals lined with gondolas to name just a few.

If you want to learn more than the obvious you have to look a little deeper into Venice’s history. If you ask anyone that knows me, they will tell you I’m not the best at history facts. I do, however, love learning about people and what makes them who they are. To be honest, that’s one of my favorite things about traveling…learning first hand about the people and the place that I’m visiting! Makes me wish I paid more attention in history class.

Handmade Venetian Lace

I wanted to purchase some handmade Venetian lace for gifts. What we received more than beautiful lace, was a history lesson from a local.

My husband found a lace factory on his phone along with the walking directions. He is just awesome like that! He helps me with all things technology…let’s just say, I need a lot of help!

We were fortunate to meet the owner’s son, he was very helpful. He took his time explaining why handmade lace was a dying art…mainly because of the age of the lace makers. He told us the oldest lacemaker there was in her nineties.

Here is a picture of me with the owners son.

It takes a seasoned lace maker an entire week to make a full lace handkerchief! Wow! That explained the price of these beautiful one of a kind pieces of art. It was really sad to hear that this beautiful art form might fade away in the near future. I felt special to have learned first hand about Venetian lace-making and hope that Venice will somehow continue to preserve the craft. Here is the link if you would like to pay a visit to this lovely lace factory…Kerer Lace and Linen.

The next photo is of a handmade, lace edged, embroidered handkerchief we purchased.

We also purchased a few pieces of hand-blown Murano glass…something I had been looking forward to for quite some time! We discussed taking a boat ride to visit the island of Murano, but found plenty of shops selling authentic Murano glass in Venice. After shopping, we continued to roam Venice window shopping and getting lost once again…on purpose this time;-).

I hope you enjoyed my series of posts…Celebrating in Italy! We enjoyed our time there and can’t wait till we can go back! Pasta, art, gondolas, history, cannoli’s, handmade shoes and lace, the accents, breathtaking views, gelato…I loved it all!

Check back again soon! I am working on a blog just dedicated to short videos of places we visited in Italy! If you have any questions or would like to share some of your Italian favorites, comment below and don’t forget Travel’s A Dance Away! Ciao!