Corner La Trin: Glass Island

The boat bounced up and down on the deep blue water. I could now see Murano, the island of glass. We were heading to Murano in a private speed boat to see how they made the world famous Murano Glassware. I was ecstatic.

Glass making fascinated me. The process was rather complex. First, you would mix silica sand, soda ash, limestone and lead together and melt it at 1200 degrees Celsius. The Murano factory showed us how to make a glass vase using glassblowing method. Glassblowing is the art of forming a hollow glass object out of a ball of molten glass using a hollow tube and by gently blowing air down it. This ‘bubble’ is then formed and shaped using tools and molds before it cools. I might have made the process sound very simple but it actually involves many many repetitive work of working the flexible hot glass in and out the furnace at a very fast and skillful speed. A Murano glassware artisan normally starts his full time apprenticeship at about 9 or 10 years old and generally needs at least 7 years before he can graduate.

After watching this amazing performance of art, we headed to the glass gallery. This gallery housed glass sculptures from fifty of the best glass artists in the world. Joseph, the Sales Manager, our private tour guide, showed us the amazing works of art. They were just so beautiful. There were fish, and turtles, giraffes, elephants, vases, plates, and all sorts of abstract designs, and just sooooooooo many others. They all had gold, or coloring inside. We noticed a giraffe that had 24k gold leafs inside it. It was indeed very beautiful and my mum was thinking about buying it.

We followed Joseph and headed downstairs to look at more glass products made by the artists in this factory. I saw a lot of pendants that I liked. My parents went back upstairs to look at the giraffe, and I stayed downstairs to look at pendants.

I decided to get a few pendants, and my dad decided to surprise my mum by buying her the most beautiful giraffe in the shop. My dad had the statue engraved "For Nicole", what a beautiful, loving gesture...That's so my Dad.

I was extremely happy with my purchases. Three of the four pendants were heart shapes with various pink, purple and blue designs. The other one was a rectangle with a pink and blue designs. I really liked them.

Finally, our Murano adventure had ended, and we were on the speedboat back to the Danieli. I had enjoyed it very much. I would never forget it.

Speedboat to Murano