It may not look like it, but this glowing orb will eventually become a glass horse.

The first stop on our day's tour was supposedly a glass factory; in reality a small demonstration workshop with a much larger store upstairs by the name of Laguna Murano Glass Vetreria Artistica.

They were happy enough for us to take photos of this demonstration of creating handmade glassware, but photography was strictly prohibited upstairs in the display area. To some extent I can understand that because many of the pieces were of a unique design and they would not want competitors to be able to create knockoffs. Of course, I suspect that they probably didn't want the prices photographed either, since those were slightly more breathtaking than the action of inhaling rather than blowing through the glass tube would be.

I don't know how many sales they make out of these tours; part of the problem is that we were still a couple of weeks away from the end and of course you don't want to be lugging around fragile glassware in suitcases for two weeks. Of course the store can arrange shipping, but that only adds to the already eye watering prices.

In this image the process of creating the new piece of art has just begun with a ball of heated (what will be) glass.