The free water taxis to Murano are typically provided by the hotels. It sounds great but in trade for taking the free taxi, you are asked to attend a sales type of meeting or video about glass blowing and the endless ways to spend your money in Murano on the glass.

Campo Santa Margherita is a fun place to eat at night. Lots of local people strolling around, less touristy etc. When we were there, several of the bars had set up extra seats for people to watch the world cup. It was great fun to see it all.

I had read about the water taxi rides to Murano. We were heading to the vaporetti dock to Murano, when a guy "who worked for the City" approached us about a free water taxi ride. Since I knew there was no obligation to buy anything and that the kids would enjoy it, we did it. We were taken to a glass factory and watched them make a few goblets. Then a guy took us up to their showroom and sort of followed us around while we looked. (I think these folks need to learn something about retail psychology. The showroom was filled with 3000 euro chandeliers and 1000 euro vases....give me a break - no one is going to feel "obligated" to buy a 1000 euro vase, or impulse-buy a 3000 euro chandelier. They'd make more sales if they showed people lower priced items.) Anyway, we looked around for about 5 mintues then excused ourselves - the guy said "you are in a rush?" And we said..."yes." So, the trade off for the free water taxi ride was 5 minutes in a show room...not bad, I thought. I guess we could have ridden a water taxi back, but we chose not to.