Forgotten pictures of Venice

Found an old camera the other day that I don't use any more. Inside, I discovered that the memory card was full of pictures of Venice, which I visited a couple of years ago.

In my pictures, I always try to capture the life of the place as well as the tourist sites (although Venice has amazing and beautiful detail absolutely everywhere you look).  Although Venice is full of tourists, there still is a dwindling group of people who actually live and work there.

Here's a random selection of the photos from the batch I've looked at so far. 

This is glass stew. Well, actually, it's glass offcuts in one of the workshops in Murano.

These glassmakers didn't mind me peeping into their workshop - I suppose they're used to it.

The furnace

A glass sculpture in the square

Returning from Murano on the ferry

Here's a street near where the ferry docks. I like the way Italians come out and socialise - it was such a nice atmosphere.

Just an ordinary street scene, complete with nun. This was somewhere to the east of town, I've forgotten exactly where.

These guys were collecting signatures for a petition, but seemed happy enough chatting in the evening sun. And the people below were having a torchlight procession near the bus station. I think we had to get a bus somewhere, but it was entirely impossible because they'd closed everything for the procession. They'd also cancelled all the buses for an indefinite time, and nobody seemed to have the slightest idea what was going on. It was quite a fun procession though, with the torches blazing in the gathering dusk.

This is out towards the east of town, it was tremendously hot and bright and so the shadows seemed very dark.

A sailing ship was moored there - it's a training ship for young sailors. Very impressive, must have been wonderful when ALL the ships were like this.

The canal below was boxed in with hoardings, presumably they were doing some work behind them. It did look rather strange.

And of course if you walk for long enough you'll arrive at St. Mark's and see all the touristy stuff.

St. Mark's is more amazing than you could ever guess from photos - I pretty well gave up trying to take pictures.  But above, there's just a tiny bit of the main facade.  Imagine it times 100.

These pigeons looked beautiful against an urn, with artful shapes echoing natural ones. 

And this stone dog definitely engaged me with its eye.

Everywhere you look there are masks

This little girl was fascinated by some animal ones.

Some of the alleyways at night have a theatrical air

Then back home on the vaporetto with a few other tired people.  These water buses whiz in and out to the stops at top speed - they're practical, not elegant, but also part of the life of Venice.

Ah well, back to look at the rest of the photos. And remind me, must go back to Venice and (b) print out the best and (b) put them in an album with a written account of the trip, which will be in my notes, so that we can read through and remember ourselves. 

 Hm, wonder where the notebook is....