Beautiful Murano Glass...

Ironically, I bought my first piece of Murano glass at a small shop in Raleigh long before we ever dreamed of living in Europe. While some of the other islands near Venice are supposed to be prettier, we both wanted to do some glass shopping.

Christmas of Light (sometimes called the Comet Glass Star) was created by master glassmaker Simone Cenedese. The star, an iconic image of the island of glassmaking, consists of 500 glass elements, all made by hand and blown by mouth.

Apparently not only tourists were drawn to this sculpture; the ground below the sculpture was covered in broken glass, making it an unusual place to rest.