The outer Venice islands of Murano & Burano

In a famous city, the good stuff can be beyond the best-known sites, in places that feel less crowded, more authentic, serving up their own unique flavours and history.

While there’s no doubt Venice’s St Mark’s Basilica, Doge Palace, and Rialto Bridge are must-visits, a journey to the outer islands of Murano and Burano offers an alternative Venetian experience.

If you’ve heard of Venetian glass, you’ll have heard of Murano, a name synonymous with Italy’s (if not Europe’s) finest coloured glass. North of the six districts (sestieri) of Venice, just 25 minutes across the water, quaint Murano is like a mini-Venice made up of seven islands linked by bridges with its own Grand Canal dividing the islands in two.

We take the Vaporetto water bus across the lagoon and mudflats, marvelling at how this ornate, grand city sprang from such barren, swampy beginnings in AD421.

Ten minutes later, we arrive in Murano, with its shop fronts full of sparkling wares such as coloured glass chandeliers, jewellery, beads, bracelets, vases and trinkets.

We wander along the canal and spot a sign for a factory tour and glass-blowing demonstration. It is a treat to watch artisans still practising the same techniques used by their ancestors centuries ago, when Venice was a powerhouse of art and trade.

Paying our €10 ($16.50) entry fee, we make our way on to the warehouse floor to get a peek at what goes on behind the scenes in this centuries-old space. Stepping into the warehouse, there is a sea of boxes filled with glass scraps and discarded pieces, and it seems both ironic and incompatible to host 1000C furnaces in a former monastery with a timber ceiling.

We stop and watch three cheery and chatty workers. They work with dexterity, and not a skerrick of safety clothing in sight.

Replacing aprons, gloves and masks with shorts, T-shirts and trainers, they pass a hot rod of iron between them, manipulating a lump of melted matter at the end of it, the consistency of gum, transforming it into a thing of (expensive) beauty. We watch in awe as the master glassmaker blows into the rod, forms it into a hollow globe, stretching its globular form into the shape of a lamp. The piece, we are informed, is for the upcoming Versace collection.

Between banter, another artisan steps in. Armed with a pair of shears, he pierces it at the end, while another takes his turn at placing the molten shape back into the fire, the temperature of lava.

This merry swapping of roles between the three artisans continues, amid chat and laughter, passing the proverbial baton until the shapeless blob has transformed into a work of art, ready for one last turn in the furnace before its hefty price tag is fixed.

Our guide offers an alternative reason as to why Murano, once a fishing resort, became the chosen island for glassmaking in 1291.

While it’s often touted that all the city’s furnaces and glassmakers were moved here to mitigate the fire risk in the more populous region of Venice, we are informed of a more intriguing reason why this industry was upended to an isolated island almost 4km away. In a word — secrets.

Using recipes and methods for making glass that had become one of the area’s best exports synonymous with luxury, Venetian glass made waves across Europe, earning her a reputation as a world-class producer. Take a tour of any of the grand palaces that still exist today, brimming with ornate mirrors, chandeliers, glass vases and sculptures, and it’s clear superior glassmaking was in high demand. But while these artisans may have been placed on a pedestal, they were also heavily controlled and regulated by the Venetian Republic.

Desperate to keep their prized glassmaking sacred, Venetian authorities kept their artisans on a tight leash, and while they may have been held in high regard for their skills, they paid the price by living in a “gilded cage”, forbidden from leaving the island lest they reveal the secrets of their craft.

Twenty-five minutes back on the Vaporetto and we descend upon another island whose exquisite craft also once took the world by storm, not for its glass, but its finest lace. We saunter into a side street, where intricate lace tops, dresses and scarves are on full display, their punto in aria (“points in the air”) testament to the island’s former golden age of delicate lace finery that even adorned the signature collars of Elizabeth I of England.

But it is the heart of Burano that the true spectacle lies.

Turning in to the centre of the island, we are greeted with bizarre rows of brightly coloured houses that seem more like a scene out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than a Venetian island.

Lollipop pink, garish green, aquamarine, purple and sunflower yellow houses pop in neon bursts at every turn and corner. I somewhat cynically think the houses have been painted like a line of liquorice allsorts for the tourists but I am proved wrong. Apparently, the houses were painted their own bright colours so the local fishermen could identify their homes in the thick fog that descends on the lagoons. The tradition stuck, and the houses are re-painted every two years, providing a quirky feast for the eyes.

Further along, the red-bricked 18th century Campanile Storto di Burano is one of those commanding structures that make you look twice, just to check your eyes aren’t deceiving you. “Is that leaning?” my partner asks, looking up at the slightly tilting bell tower lording over the main square. It definitely is — just another reason to love this defiant, ancient, floating city of islands.