The island of painted houses
Burano
A fishing island in the Venetian lagoon where each small house is a different strong colour.
Why Burano is burano pink
Burano is an island in the northern Venetian lagoon, about forty minutes by boat from Venice. Its low houses stand side by side along narrow canals, each painted a different colour: pink, orange, yellow, green, blue or violet. A well-loved legend says fishermen chose bright colours so they could find their own house when returning in the lagoon fog. The colours may also simply have marked where one family's property ended. Today the scheme is protected. An owner who wants to repaint must apply to the local authority, which says which colours are allowed for that plot. Burano is also known for needle lace and for a church tower that leans.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Burano
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Burano" on Wikipedia. If you know Burano and we have it wrong, tell us.
More colour cities
All colour cities
🇮🇹 Pastel harbour of the Bay of NaplesProcidaA small island where fishermen's houses in sun-faded pink, yellow and blue are stacked above the harbour.
🇮🇹 Five pastel villages on a cliff coastCinque TerreTall houses in ochre, pink and yellow crowd tiny harbours below terraced vineyards on the Italian Riviera.
🇮🇹 La Rossa, the red oneBolognaA city of red brick towers, terracotta roofs and miles of arcades in red, orange and ochre.
🇮🇹 The city that named a colourSienaA Tuscan hill city of warm brown brick, and the source of the earth pigment called sienna.
🇮🇳 The Pink CityJaipurThe walled city wears a dusty terracotta pink, first painted on for a royal visit in 1876 and kept ever since.
🇮🇳 Town of Holi coloursVrindavanFor Holi the temple town of Krishna's childhood fills with clouds of pink, yellow and green powder.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Jaipur In: Chainwit., CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Vrindavan In: Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, source
- Procida It: Jamiethearcher at English Wikipedia, Public domain, source
- Cinque Terre It: This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves . Feel free to use my pho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bologna It: Ввласенко, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Siena It: Massimo Catarinella, CC BY-SA 3.0, source