Murano Glass

In response to the comment left below on an old post, I thought I would do my best to inform tourists on ways to spot the authentic Murano Glass in a vast sea of many fake glass shops with products made in China.

Almost all "serious" glass is from Murano. By "serious" I mean collector's items. The more expensive a shop is, the more likely the glass was made in Murano. That is not to say that all Murano glass is expensive. You can by trinkets for as little as 3 euro. The best shops are those that either make the items in the shop--you often see a person sitting in the back with a flame, making small items, or stores that sport the this logo in their window. This association guarantees that the products in the specified store are actually made in Murano, even though there are many authentic stores that do not belong to the association.

The most common-sense thing to do is to AVOID the most obvious tourist shops. If a store sells masks, glass, maps, Venice t-shirts, and magnets, then the glass (like the other products in the store) is most probably not from Venice. Try to find little shops that only sell glass! There are many glass boutiques where artists create jewelry and vases of their own design. These pieces are much more unique and very special. One of my favorite jewelry designers are the Sent Sisters, who have a small shop in Dorsoduro. Supporting the local industries is fundamental in a city as fragile as Venice!

Chinese Leather

Venice is a shrinking city. The economy is based on toursim alone, and young people leave the city in search of careers elsewhere. People prefer to rent their properties to tourists rather than locals, making housing very expensive. The bakeries and butchers slowly close and glass and mask shops appear in their places. The city is slowly becoming Disneyland. This is much to the faultof Venetians, who have succombed to the ease of making money off of fake Murano glass instead of preserving the city's culture with authentic artisian boutiques.

A new and disturbing trend is the huge growth of Chinese-run shops and bars all over the island city. Just today I passed by what used to be one of the few toy stores in Venice, near the Rialto bridge, which has now become one of the hundreds of Chinese run stores that sells fake leather bags to unknowning tourists. I believe in the integration of immigrants. One of the things that I dislike most about Italians is that I find them to be very xenophobic and I think they should do what is possible to welcome and accept the new immigrant populations. Nevertheless these horrible tourist-trap stores are ruining the city, allbeit no more than venetian-run tourist trap stores.

For those of you visiting Venice, make an effort to shop in real boutiques, stores that make their own products or demonstrate that they sell real Murano glass. Try to find a bar or restaurant off the beaten path, that does not have pictures of the food on its menu. It is vital, for the future of this city, that both locals and tourists make an effort to support shops that cater to quality goods and that support the local population.