From Trieste we caught the train to Venice. We stepped out of the station, and there in front of us was the Grand Canal. With only 60,000 locals, and 10,000,000 visitors each year, this city is a caricature of its old self. Still, as most tourists only visit for a few hours, we found some relative solitude at the edges of the days, the winding streets and masks in the windows reminding me of Labyrinth.

Our guide Maria took us on the Hidden Venice Walking Tour. With a brown cape swung around her shoulders, speaking of trading with foreign lands, she reminded me of a Venetian from the 1400’s. She showed us the church porch that protected Europe’s first bankers, and the nearby street to house Europe’s first insurance agent, gambling on those treacherous trips across the Mediterranean. We saw some of Europe’s first public clocks, divided into 24 hours, where XXIIII meant sunset.

We took a ferry across to Murano. Glass has been boiled, twisted, and sculpted on this island for over 800 years. We saw some extraordinary work in the Museo del Vetro, exceptional colours and inserts, the light shining through translucent pieces that had been carefully crafted centuries ago. It took us a while, but we finally found a Fornace that was offering demonstrations. As we were sitting down, the man twirled some glowing magma on a stick. With some pliers in his other hand, he pulled and snipped the liquid, encouraging a horse’s head to emerge. Four more strategic tugs created the legs, and then a few more swift movements produced the tail and severed the animal from its creator. The whole process was over in a few seconds. To his right, we noticed a mountain of pale blue horses, discarded from previous demonstrations, perhaps waiting to be melted and reborn the next day. I rescued one of the horses from the showroom, having seen the birth of his cousin.

We finished up with a late lunch – the food a little better than the terrible fare available on the main island, then accidentally caught the Vaporetto going the wrong direction, circumnavigating the picturesque island before finally arriving back at our hotel.