Burano Local Customs

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What I really really liked with all of these houses were the door blinds. This was also a bit like travelling into my past, when I was in Italy as a kid with my parents. I remember mostly these lovely curtains in front of the houses, which were breezing in the wind and also had a very similar pattern – these stripes.
As mentioned earlier, mostly the stripes were in the same colour as the houses, which made them very much harmonic.

It is a good idea to keep the heat out of the houses, and in Burano’s case, I also think it is to protect house owners from the too curious peaks of us tourists. Sometimes, I really felt like a voyeur, peeking into many side streets where people had their siesta out on the yards.
Window blinds are also often realised with a similar material and a similar style.

Oh, and the fourth photo I had to "process" a bit - the wall was just too white, so I had to give it a frame :-) Haha, nice that my PhotoImpact had nearly the same blue to choose :-)

This is what can happen after visits, when looking at the photos and select them. It was only when I was back home that I realized that this house here has a special door, a door, which is very typical for northern Germany. We call it Klöntür, means something like chat door, and it is horizontally separated into two parts. Both parts can be opened separately, and usually, the upper one is opened to chat with the neighbors when they pass by – thus the name Klöntür (klönen = chatting in northern German dialect).
So maybe some Germans immigrated to Burano ? I’ll check next time, when I’ll go there. It is on Fondamenta della Giudecca.

On the link below is how such a typical Klöntür would look like.

Sarah (toonsarah) just commented that doors like these are called stable doors in UK. Made for horses to allow them to stay safe inside the stall but look out and enjoy the views :-) So I should rename my heading - British Germans or German British living here ?

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This one is a cry for help from Leyle, our expert, and devoted to Christine, without whom I would never have noticed these special ornaments at the walls. Christine told me about the mysterious signs or ornaments of animals eating each other and asked me if I could find out what they mean during my trip. When I was in Venezia then, I saw them almost everywhere; I think that happens when something sits in your brain and you think about it all the time. I have asked my guide in Palazzo Ducale, and she told me, it is Byzantine style and would have told me more, but there was not appropriate time for much chat.
So – here they are, the photos of these ornaments, of which we know now that they are from the Byzantine period, and symbolise somehow that virtues win over bad manners. But still, this is not really enough for us as explanations. So we would be happy to hear more about this, which animal stands for which virtue, which animal for which bad manner ?

Thanks already for help :-)

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Now I like street signs very much, if they are old and weathered and have character. Of course I liked Venezia’s street signs, but the ones in Burano topped them – of course with the setting against these colourful walls. My favourite was the first one, of Corte … haha, it is already that much weathered that I can’t read it properly. It is located at Fondamenta della Pescheria, in the east.
Calle Caletta is the small calle that turns off opposite at Fondamenta della Giudecca. Di Pizzo is just south of the piazza, Fondamente Terranova is the easternmost calle and the last photo is of a house at Fondamenta Cavanella, just next to the southern bridge.

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It is logical that the lagoon’s islands – land recovered from the water – do not have that much space for huge gardens or parks. This is also the case for Burano, albeit not that much as for Venezia. That’s why people use the little space in front of their houses or on their balconies for a wonderful and colourful garden. Almost as to cope with the different colours of the houses. From that point of view, Burano is different with it’s fireworks of colours also in plants and flowers. Venezia has more elegant, green and lush gardens and balconies.
Well, the most beautiful one I saw was just across Lilla’s house (the doggie or cat from above). The orange house and then this marvellous strong pink flowers. I don’t recall their name, but I know them as typical mediterrean plants. Maybe someone can tell me their name ?
The plant arch next to the white house is belonging to Lilla’s parents, it must be heaven to sit under this natural roof in summer and sip cold drinks (haha, yes, I miss the Spritz).
And being a lover of snapdragons, I was of course enlighted to find these ones in all rainbow colours in a small driveway (well, drive = for bicycles and people) of a house in Burano’s backstreets.

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Already in Venezia I could not get enough finding all these little sculptures on houses and walls all and everywhere. In Burano it is even more fascinating, given the setting against the different colours. You can find all kinds of them, mostly religious ones, like in photo 4 (just above a tiny little altar building) or a private altar at a house (photo 5), or coats of arms (photo 2, whereas I don’t know whose coat of arms it is, I just loved that tower). Also cute are the different very much colourful welcome signs at the entrances – like in photo 3.
But my most favourite was the sundial in the first photo. Beautiful and happy looking ceramic work (haha, can ceramic look happy, no, but it makes everyone happy who looks at it). I don’t know where it was made, as I didn’t see shops selling this kind of stuff. But maybe it might bring the locals to produce things like these and sell them – it would sell better and they could sell something made at home – rather than the crap cheap lace copies from China.

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Well, we did see that animals have coloured homes, but I also found it quite fascinating that some boat owners also colour their wooden boats in several colours. I found this one (just a plain wooden boat) in the riò along Via B. Galuppi, and was smiling at how intense it was painted.

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Somewhere I have read that no one hangs out laundry for drying in a more picturesque way than the Italians – and this is true !
Laundry hangs around all over the place, there seems to be laundry day every day ! A very much lovely sight, and even more so if the laundry colour does harmonize with the house colour – I found that blue-in-blue with a slight touch of pink so adorable (in the first two photos). Dear owner forgive me for displaying even your underwear here !

Ah, that’s again something I really love with Italy – my god, I try to imagine how people in my country would react if we would hang our laundry in this nice chaotic picturesque way. The’d go mad and report me to the laundry-order-hanging police (lol) – well, or let me quote famous Bill Bryson from his book Neither here nor there:
“An English journalist, living in Bonn… who was phoned by his landlady and instructed to come home and rehang his laundry in a more systematic manner. He told her, in so many words, to go screw herself, but every time he put out his washing after that, he would find later that it all had been taken down and rehung.”
(end of quote)
Well, this landlady should better never come to Italy – she would get constant heart attacks or end up in Italian jail for rehanging their laundry, lol.