Experience
Glass, and how you tell a company from a shop
Inside a tourist district, learning to recognize where production actually happens and where things are only sold. It is the job of anyone who has to buy from a supplier they do not know, and in Murano you learn it in two days.
On this page
Fact sheet
- Days
- 2
- Cities
- Venice and Murano
- Recommended season
- February-June and September-November, on weekday mornings
- Group
- 8 to 15 participants
- Language of the visits
- Italian and English, depending on who receives the group
- Price
- Quotation on request
→ Request a quotation · Download the itinerary in PDF
Itinerary day by day
Day 1 — The furnace, and how you recognize one
Early, Murano. A visit to a furnace with a regular ticket and a demonstration at a fixed time. The technical part is short, half an hour: the rest of the morning is guided observation work along the island's main street, with a sheet of criteria in hand.
This is the lesson, and it is written on the site before the group travels. In Murano most of the serious workshops are closed to the public; many «visits» that turn up online are sales presentations; anyone charging you to walk into a furnace is selling something that ought to be free. Recognizing the difference, on your own feet and in two hours, is the exercise of this experience. In the afternoon, a two-hour working session: each team fills in the qualification sheet for an unknown supplier, with the questions to ask and the documents to request.
Day 2 — The archive and the distillery, two companies that did not move
In the morning, Fondazione Rubelli. It is the archive of a Venetian textile house still in business: thousands of samples and drawings the company uses, not merely displays. You work on the reuse of an archive as a source of product.
In the afternoon, Ca' Select, in Cannaregio. It is the distillery of a Venetian aperitif, that is to say a company that produces inside the city instead of in an industrial zone, with every restriction that implies.
Closing session, an hour and a half: what it costs a company to stay where it was born, and in which cases that cost is a brand investment.
What you visit
| Place | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| A Murano furnace with a public ticket | Technical demonstration at a fixed time, with booking | Bookable |
| Fondazione Rubelli, Venice | Company archive of a working Venetian textile house | On request |
| Ca' Select, Venice | Distillery of an aperitif, inside the city | On request |
What is included and what is not
Included: admission and demonstration at the furnace, the vaporetto to Murano and back, the visit requests to Fondazione Rubelli and Ca' Select, three and a half hours of working sessions, the observation sheet and the materials, one person from the Istituto with the group and the certificate of participation. Not included: flight, transfers, lodging, meals, personal travel insurance, purchases at the furnace.
The season, and why
It is sold from February to June and from September to November, and always on weekday mornings: the furnaces that work seriously work Monday to Friday, and at the weekend you visit the shop, not the production.
August is ruled out: by custom the furnaces close for the whole month.
January is ruled out: high water, cold and many activities on reduced hours. Venice in winter is beautiful and no use for this.
Logistics and capacity
Murano is reached by vaporetto from Venice in about twenty minutes and the island is covered on foot. The second day runs entirely inside Venice.
The recommended maximum is 15 participants: the furnaces are hot, narrow spaces with an open furnace mouth, and a larger group does not fit safely in front of the demonstration. It is the lowest capacity in the Italian two-day catalog, and it depends on the place, not on us.
The recommended group matches the maximum.
Cover
The program includes an accident and public liability policy for the whole stay. The sums insured, the insurer and the policy number are published once it is taken out and are attached to the contract; until then they can be requested in writing, with an answer within two working days.
Related experiences
Many, small, specialized (7 days) · A certification is not a campaign (4 days) · A craft, an hour, a price (2 days, Florence)
Let us talk about this route
We answer within two working days with the dates, the day by day program and the quotation.