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Old 2018-10-30, 6:54am
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Ofilia Ofilia is offline
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Join Date: Jul 21, 2005
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Ciao, Polly! Lucio is truly a magnetic personality as you stated. To see him work is to see God creating the human life form with all its grace!. I too have wandered aimlessly around Murano, Venice and especially my favorite is Burano. I discovered some really curious and totally free adventures just being that curious person. It all lends to the total picture and inspiration of what it is to be in the glass Mecca of all things art glass.

Lucio still has the dates in March totally open for us to choose. I'm leaning toward the last two weeks of March mostly to just move away from the wintery/aqua alta weather as much as possible. The workshop dates would start that Wednesday, the 20th and the last day of optional workshop days would be the following Wednesday the 27th. The nice thing too for air fare shopping is that there is no Easter holiday (which some years fall in March) to complicate finding the best deal this March 2019.

A tip on air fare shopping... don't get fooled by really low fares that make you travel at the ungodly hours of pre-dawn from Murano. You either have to catch the 4AM Alilaguna vaporetto (more difficult than you imagine) or hire a private boat taxi that will cost you easily another 100-125 + euro! Also watch those lay overs... sure, you can get super cheap air fares going through distant places like Turkey, but you have ridiculous layovers that eat up a whole day (or more) of travel. Best is to spend that "extra" day and energy IN VENICE!! My absolute preferred time to arrive to VCE is between 11 AM and 2 PM. This way you can arrive fully invigorated with the adrenaline of getting to your destination and land running. Easiest to navigate out of VCE is 9 AM flights or later.

To take advantage of spare explore dates would be any extended time you have before and after those Wednesdays. The weekend is great for any Venice exploration, but the actual Monday, Tuesday, Thursday after are great other glass studio visit days. I've come to know several hot shops and other glassy related studios that open their doors to us to browse, watch and shop.

On that note of "shopping"... be sure to leave plenty of room in your luggage to haul back the bounty that you will amass! I've had students bring cloths they were willing to leave behind in lieu of new treasures! You can even have opportunity to buy unusual color glass rod that may be available to the locals, but know your prices! No sense wasting luggage weight on stuff you can buy back home at good prices. We've had students buy the 10 kilo bundles from Effetre but that requires commitment to buy the whole lot and personally hauling the big heavy bundle back to your apartment and it really has only been an option for a couple students in all the years I've been there who did it. That was with the thick ivory rod that is difficult if not impossible to find here in the US. The other is a couple vendors I can introduce you to and you buy by whatever quantity you desire. On a good day, they may give you the "local's price" but they may give you the "black book" (tourist) price... all depends on if it's a good day or not. When buying millefiori, it is cheaper to buy cane "bits" from Effetre than to buy it all nicely pre-sliced. To buy these is easy and no special connection is needed, but a word to the wise, if the same lady is there she watches your time spent in the millefiore room like a hawk. You have to shop or get the heck out quickly and not test her patience . She has a nick name I learned from a former employee of Effetre that I cannot repeat here in public . It's kind of fun getting to know these nuances of the personalities in Murano.
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