Winter Evening in Burano

This photo is actually from the end of last February. I had almost made a point when I was in Venice in 1991 of not visiting Burano, fearing it would be nothing but a town fitted out for the benefit of tourists--that is, not a real town at all, but just a facsimile, stuffed with tacky lace shops, of something long gone.

Perhaps that is what some part of it might seem like during the day, during high season, but on this Saturday evening last winter I was amazed by how very few tourists we saw--almost none. We arrived during the passegiato, as the sun was setting, and on Via Baldassarre Galuppi seemed to see only local families and, of course, as this is Italy, the elderly. I was practically the only person with a camera and map, while most of the other people seemed to know each other and stopped and talked in small groups amid the lighted shops, as people do stop and talk here in a way different than any place in America I've lived.