No, this is not a cartoon or an artist’s rendering or even a Photoshop color saturation trick. Full of beautifully-colored houses, Burano, Italy, (a real place) is an island which shares the Venetian Lagoon with Venice and Murano. While seeming random and charming, the bright house colors actually follow a specific scheme. If someone wants to paint their house, they have to send a request to the government, who will respond with the list of colors permitted for that lot. The houses were, as the story goes, first painted their crazy hues so that fishermen could identify them from the water. When the colorful houses were discovered to be a tourist attraction, the town’s government set up their current system ensuring that similarly-colored houses aren’t situated too closely together.  This really appeals to my fondness for order!

I would love to know whether being surrounded by all these cheerful colors has any effect on the town’s residents. I think it would be wonderful to wake up to a place that has lovely colors year ’round. I’ll bet it would be a great remedy for the winter blahs, at any rate.

In addition to its crazy colors, Burano is also know for its handmade needle lace. Here’s that legend from the tourism website in their own words:

“One of the most famous legends about Burano narrates that an ancient betrothed fisherman, while he was fishing outside the lagoon, in the east sea, hold up to a siren who tried to entice him by her canto. So he received a gift from sirens’ queen, enchanted by his faithfulness: the siren thumped the side of the boat by her tall, creating a foam from which a wedding veil developed.

Came back home opportune in the day of marriage, he gave the gift to his fiancée. She was admired and envied from all the young ladies of the island, whereupon they begin to imitate the lace of the wedding veil employing needle-and-thread more and more thin, hoping to create a even more beautiful lace for their wedding dresses.” –Isola de Burano website

So apparently, one thing the island is not known for is its English. I’m not judging. I think it’s all adorable.

All pictures are the property of someone, somewhere. Not me, but someone.