6 Must-sees in Venice's shops and markets

Venice is a small city, with a population of less than 70,000 in the historic centre, so it should be no surprise to find that it doesn't have shopping streets to compare with those of Milan, Florence or Rome.

But many of the big Italian fashion labels have outlets in the Mercerie and to the west of the Piazza, and there are several places where you can buy something uniquely Venetian "" and the Rialto remains one of Europe's most characterful marketplaces.

Lace
Like Murano in the northern lagoon, Burano has its own specialist handicraft "" exquisite lacework. Making Burano-point and Venetian-point lace is extremely exacting work, both highly skilled and mind-bendingly repetitive, taking an enormous toll on the eyesight.

Each woman specialises in one particular stitch, and as there are seven stitches in all, each piece is passed from woman to woman during its construction. An average-size table centre requires about a month of work.

Paper
Decorative paper is another Venetian speciality, sold through various small outlets, such as Legatoria Piazzesi which is located near S. Maria Zobenigo (Campiello della Feltrina 2511).

This long-established paper-producer is the last to use the old wooden-block method of printing; stunning handprinted papers and cards, and a nice line in pocket diaries, too.

Masks
Carnival masks are made year-round in the city's numerous workshops, and their handiwork is amazingly inventive "" MondoNovo is one the very best. This mask workshop, located just off Campo S Marherita, is perhaps the most imaginative in the city, producing everything from ancient Greek tragic masks to portraits of Richard Wagner.

Glass
No trip to Venice would be complete without a visit to the furnaces and shops of Murano. Murano nowadays owes its fame entirely to its glass-blowing industry, and its main fonamente are crowded with shops selling fruit of the furnaces, some of it fine, most of it repulsive and some if it laughably pretentious. You'll see little in the showrooms to equal the remarkable work on display in the Murano glass museum, and even that takes second place to the island's beautiful main church.

The Rialto
Once the most celebrated market in Europe, the Rialto is nowadays a more humble but still thriving operation, offering a fabulous array of fresh food "" plus thousand of souvenir T-shirts.

The Mercerie
Running from the Piazza to within a few metres of the Rialto Bridge, the Mercerie, a chain of stores that starts under the Torre dell'Orologio, are the busiest shopping streets in Venice.

This information has been extracted from Venice DIRECTIONS (1st edition), written by Jonathan Buckley, published by Rough Guides.