Vicenza - now we're talking...

Even though I didn't see much of Vicenza's "tourist sites", I enjoyed my stay here tremendously.  For one thing, my host picked me up at the train station! I had contacted the owner to see if he could call a taxi for me and he said, no, no - I'll have my dad pick you up and I shouted "hosanna" (not really but...) and I was so glad he did because the station was very far away from the B & B.  I must have fuzz on my brain when I made some of these reservations because none of them so far have been very close to my temporary homes.

Anyway, this place was unbelievable.  It's on basically a residential street, mainly apartment-type buildings on one side of the street and then houses (some of which might be other B and B's on our side of the street.  So my first are of my little nest.

 See that long white curtain - it's over a door leading out to...

Incredible!

So, after catching your breath from that here comes a bunch of reading (ho-hum):

I am now on a train to Turin where I will stay for a night and then on to Lyon in France and all I can say is that one-star Michelin dinner better be good! :)

The family that owns the place I just left in Vicenza must be wonderful people to know.  The son speaks quite good English although in a very Italian manner so it is a little hard to actually tell him what you want to tell him.  I’ve never met him, just talked on the phone because it is his father who has done the transporting and the one full day I was there he (the father) and a woman from maybe Somalia? - she told me but of course I can’t remember, were doing the cleaning.  She spoke English quite well too and finally, with much laughter and patience, taught me how to lock and unlock the front door into the building.  But the father is my favorite - I don’t know how old he would be but probably 60 something, a full head of white hair, bit of a pot belly and just so eager to communicate.  He would say something in Italian and wait for my response and, of course, I wouldn’t really have one though I’d smile, and so he would either try again or maybe be telling me something else and again I wouldn’t get it.  And, of course I would say stuff to him and he wouldn’t understand and we both kept doing that any time we saw each other.  And that was another thing - on my second visit to the O Sole Mio restaurant, here he came with his wife.  They stopped at my table and he said whatever he said and I said whatever I said, he introduced his wife and we were all just pretty much delighted with each other without having any idea what we were saying to each other.    And finally today here he came, pronto on the nose, to take me to the train station and we still would say bits of stuff to each other and not understand.  When we got there and he had my suitcase out, he put out his hand and we shook and then we did the 2-cheek hug!!  Just delightful.  If I ever were to go to Vicenza again (and I really would like to spend some time there and see their various famous things) the only problem would be I’d want to stay there and they’re kind of far removed from the historic center. 

Okay, pictures

First eating - the first pic is my pizza at O Sole Mio and you can see the little handle the chef, or should I say Master Pizzamaker puts on  each pizza.    The second time I went I had a Parma ham pizza with the buffalata Mozzarella and it was very nummy also - and the crust was a little more charred which I like.  The picture below is the shrimp, zucchini and buffalata Mozzarella.

 

And the second picture is my dessert which was a pistachio maybe ganache?  The waiter told me about 2 desserts on the menu and when I wasn’t too enthusiastic about these he said oh, and we also have ...whatever...and this was whatever and it was not only beautiful but truly scrumptious.  There were somehow two different green parts - one more ice creamy and one more maybe icy.  And somewhere in one of those parts after the firt few bites came a hidden tunnel of very dark chocolate which stayed around from then on in every bite.  The drizzles are some red or purplish fruit coulis.  All this in this very down home, very little  decor, family style type restaurant.

And speaking of historic center I found it on Sunday, a lovely day, and that’s what convinced me that it would be better to be closer in if I ever visited again. It was a long walk to get to where it started to be close to some of the things I would like to see and then a long walk back so closer would be better.  I went into a little cafe and had a sandwich and two little dessert things with first a little pot of tea and then a glass of red wine for with the desserts.  By the time I came out the weather had changed and it was drizzling very slightly but I had every intention of trying to get to at least one of the sites that the girl at the cafe had told me were 5 or 6 minutes away.  Put the place in my phone map and, once again, it wasn’t up to the challenge.  Neither was I so I started home and took some photos along the way.

My computer likes to rearrange the order of the pictures when I as a tired reporter just go ahead and put them all in at once.  So, you will come across a couple or so pictures of very old walls but starting out here are pictures of some of the stuff I saw within the walls.

 This is a part of the wall as is the one below.  The wall with the little towers fairly frequently went on and on.

 The fellow on the left lost his nose...

 This was when I was getting closer to the historic center.  And then walking back out there were lots of fairly exclusive shops with nice things in the windows.

 A brooch and earrings that were so lovely.  

 Just in case there's a student of archeology visiting, I copied this because it explains the strange photos that follow.  And it was in Italian AND English - the first time I've seen it this trip.  What it says us that whle something else was being done  they found these ancient parts of an acqueduct (ten of them (I only posted pics of 3) and a lot of stuff I didn't understand.  But I always like it when some place that is already quite old discovers something even older under it and displays it.  I've seen that at a number of places in Italy.

 The photo makes these look like aliens and they weren't - just darling little children in front of a very decorative church.

And going back out the way I came in.

Then I went home and worked on getting the Scrovengi Chapel post done and then by darn it was time to go to O Sole Mio again!  Ordered one wrong thing this time - fried olives.  I love olives and I tried to find out what they were stuffed with but couldn’t get my waiter to understand even though his English was very good.  And they were stuffed with some kind of pate and heavily crusted with the batter so essentially you didn’t get any olive taste at all.  

And that's it for Vicenza.  And I haven't proof-read this because it's late but I want it posted because I'm so far behind this trip I can't remember what I've posted and what I haven't.