Happy Travel Italy

The island of Burano lies in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon, about 40 minutes from Venice by motorboat. Burano was probably settled by the Romans, and in the 6th century was occupied by people from Altino, who named it for one of the gates of their former city. Two stories are attributed to how the city obtained its name. One is that it was initially founded by the Buriana family, and another is that the first settlers of Burano came from the small island of Buranello, five miles to the south. Although the island soon became a thriving settlement, it was administered from Torcello and had none of the privileges of that island or of Murano. It rose in importance only in the 16th century, when women on the island began making lace with needles. The lace was soon exported across Europe, but decline began in the 18th century and the industry did not revive until 1872, when a school of lacemaking was opened. Lacemaking on the island boomed again, but few now make lace in the traditional manner as it is extremely time-consuming and therefore expensive.
The island has a much different atmosphere from Murano or Venice's historic center, thanks to the Buranese custom of painting houses in bright colors, a tradition that may have had its origins in the color schemes of local fishing boats. Everywhere you look, you'll see houses clad in blue, green, pink, rose, lavender, purple, yellow, and other colors. And because Burano's houses tend to be small, the island has a cheerful coziness.
Fishing is one traditional occupation of the Buranelli; the other, to this day, is lacemaking. If you haven't spent your souvenir budget in the glass shops of Murano, you may find it hard to leave Burano without a supply of doilies and table linens or a wedding dress.
A "must see" attraction on Burano is the Museo del Merletto, or Lace Museum, in the old Scuola di Merletti or lacemaking school. The small two-story museum has impressive displays of historic and contemporary lace designs. If you're lucky, you'll find a group of Buranese women wielding their needles in a sewing circle upstairs, near the display of traditional lacemaking implements. Roman Catholics and lovers of solitude may enjoy a side trip to the monastery island of San Francesco del Deserto, where the nine Franciscan monks welcome visitors from 9-10 a.m. and 3-5 p.m. daily. The island is 20 minutes by rowboat from the Burano waterfront.

The Island of Torcello, is one of the main three-islands visited by tourists along with Murano and Burano. The furthest of the three from Venice , that means if you are taking public transportation to visit all three island you'll end up consuming 6 or more hours of your time in Venice. A good and cheap alternative might be to take a three-island boat tour which operates daily lasting three hours to give you an idea of what the islands have to offer. Once the commercial capital of Venice , nowadays Torcello boasts a population of only 60 people.

After the downfall of the Roman Empire, Torcello was one of the first lagoon islands to be successively populated by those Veneti who fled the terra firma  to take shelter from the recurring barbarian invasions, especially after Attila the Hun had destroyed the city of Altinum and all of the surrounding settlements in 452. Although the hard-fought Veneto region formally belonged to the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna since the end of the Gothic War, it remained unsafe on account of frequent Germanic invasions and wars: during the following 200 years the Langobards and the Franks fuelled a permanent influx of sophisticated urban refugees to the island’s relative safety, including the Bishop of Altino himself. In 638 Torcello became the bishop’s official seat for more than a thousand years and the people of Altinum brought with them the relics of Saint Heliodorus, now the patron saint of the island. Torcello benefited from maintaining close cultural and trading ties with Constantinople, after the fall of the western Roman Empire, but as a rather distant outpost of the Byzantine Empire it could establish de facto autonomy from the eastern capital.
Torcello rapidly grew in importance as a political and trading centre: in the 10th century it had a population of at least 10,000 people and was much more powerful than Venice. Thanks to the lagoon’s salt marshes, the salines became Torcello’s economic backbone and its harbour developed quickly into an important re-export market in the profitable east-west-trade, which was largely controlled by Byzantium during that period. Fortunately for the island of rivus altus, the lagoon around the island of Torcello gradually became a swamp from the 12th century onwards and Torcello’s heyday came to an end: navigation in the laguna morta was impossible before long and the growing swamps seriously aggravated the malaria situation, so that the population abandoned the worthless island bit by bit and left for Murano, Burano or Venice.

Deserted, the island boasts two main attractions: the Venetian-Byzantine Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta founded in the 7 th Century was Venice 's first cathedral. Rebuilt in the 11 th it contains magnificent Byzantine mosaics. One of the highlights of the church's rich decorations can be found on the west wall with a vast mosaic featuring the Last Judgement, but the cathedrals great treasure is the Mosaic of the Madonna in the semi-dome of the apse. Starkly set on a pure gold background, the figure has been hailed by many as one of the most stunning works of Byzantine art in Italy. Close to the church you'll find the Museum of Torcello which recounts the story of the Island over the centuries. Also note that close to the Cathedral is the tiny church of Santa Fosca which was founded in the 11 th Century to house the remains of Saint Fosca.
Apart from the cathedral, the other main attraction for tourists visiting the Island of Torcello is taking lunch at the celebrated Cipirianni restaurant.