If children designed towns they would look like Burano!
Rectangular houses painted in a kaleidoscope of colours line up along the canal side. Add in some brightly coloured washing flapping in the warm breeze, a blue sky with fleeting cotton wool clouds and you get the picture!
Probably the most colourful town in Italy, Burano, a small fishing island set within the Venetian lagoon, is just a forty minute ferry journey from Venice and is a photographers nirvana. Although it might seem a wrench to pull yourself away from the stunning and beautiful La Serenissima you should definitely do it as the contrast is amazing. Whilst Venice's mysterious narrow alleys and canals often cast you in darkness, the two-storey fisherman's houses of Burano let the light in and the blue skies shine though.
The theory behind the rainbow palette of houses lining the shores of this small island is that it made it easier for fishermen to find their way home in the mist and gloom. Protected by law, home owners in Burano have to apply for permission to repaint their houses, with only a selected range of colours permitted. Burano pops in the sunshine. It is the “Fujifilm Velvia” of towns.
My groups love their time on Burano, wandering around drinking in the atmosphere and being constantly surprised by an ever more colourful and graphic canvass that seems to present itself at every turn. There is so much to photograph from postcard views down the canals, to graphic colour and minimalist compositions not to mention the locals going about their daily business and of course the tourists always great subjects for a bit of street photography. They usually get so engrossed that they ask for “extra time” – the “referee” is only too pleased to grant it, though not before we’ve enjoyed a wonderful lunch in a canal side café.
If you get the chance to visit this fabulous little island do so, it will be half a day that you’ll never forget.
