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That's a lot of glasswares.
It's also not surprising to anyone who has walked the streets of Venice, where every little hole-in-the-wall shop and big, touristy boutique seems to sport a display of delicate and colorful examples of the glassmaker's art.
Quality varies tremendously, and many of the items are actually machine-produced or crafted anywhere from Eastern Europe to Taiwan, but the best rule of thumb is simply to buy it if you like it and to blazes with its provenance.
Learn to make Venetian glass
Want to try your own hand at making mosaics out of Venetian glass? The maestros of the Orsini studio run courses lasting from 3 days to 2 weeks at their Cannaregio workshop (www.orsoni.com).For glass, you really should head out to Murano—to which the city fathers moved Venice's glass indsutry in 1291 as a precaution against fire—but most of the great glass-makers also have showrooms in downtown Venice:
The best blown glass is actually out on the island of Murano, which is where "Venetian" glass originated. » more
To be sure you visit the best shops, take a customized shopping tour of Venice:
Don't be afraid to bargain, especially if you're buying more than one item.
They have loads of experience packing glass so it doesn't break.
Would you really carry the thing around in your bag from hotel to hotel, running with it to catch trains and slinging it into the trunk of your rental car, only then to entrust your delicate glass baubles to the airline baggage handlers? Nope.
Accept the shipping cost as part of the price of buying the glass.
If your idea of the perfect blown-glass souvenir is a tiny glass gondola, or a touristy glass Carnival mask, or even a glass Homer Simpson (with or without pornographically enormous phallus), that is precisely what you should buy.
Be happy with your purchase.
When I was 11, I bought—from some nondescript Venetian glass shop—a tiny black cat and spent the next several years (and several moves) carefully keeping its impossibly delicate glass whiskers, thinner than a human hair, from snapping off.
Blown glass Christmas tree ornaments are both very Venetian and quite classy.
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This article was written by Reid Bramblett and was last updated in April 2015
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All information was accurate at the time.
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