6/24 -- Explore Trento, Transfer to Brixen

Today, we drove to the Dolomites, also known as South Tyrol. This part of Italy was controlled by the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bavaria, and Italy through Napolean and back to Austria. It became part of Italy once and for all after WWI. The people here were generally not  happy about this and even today, German is the first language for 70% of the population. This means I get to practice what I got good at in college and  have mostly forgotten! Along the way, we saw castles and more mountains.

This was our first siting of a Dolomite -very rocky and oddly
shaped by wind and maybe water.

On our way north from Verona, we stopped at Trento, also known as Trentino. Cities here have a German and an Italian name. Trento is linked to Neptune because of the river, and its Roman name was taken from  Neptune's trident: Tridentum.The Roman city was 15 feet below the current one, and some of the arches on the old churches are quite short because the main parts are buried. There were also a lot of buildings with frescos. The city was founded in the 4th century BCE and conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BCE.

Trento is also famous for the Council  of Trent, and attempt to re-unify the Catholic and Protestant churches. We had lunch in Trento after our walking tour and then headed  north again to Brixen.

Although the stone here is called marble, it is really lime-
stone quarried from near by and inages of ancient shells
are found in a lot of places on the street.

 

Side view of the Duomo with tents for a fair along side. It
was supposed to have two of the onion-topped towers, but
the second one was never built.

 

The current church is built over the oldest one. You can see
the original mosaics in the area below the altar.

This area shows a new floor abutting a much older one.

This model of the Duomo is labeled in Braille and designed
to help visually impaired visitors.

Our local guide, Laura, is showing us the original very
square layout of the city. Old buildings are shown in
detail and the more moderns ones are just flat-ish
placeholders.

This is a facist quote from Mussolini,
whose name was chipped off the end
after his demise.

 

Under this square, the old original Roman village was found
15 feet down.

This and the 2 photos below are a disjointed panorama
of the local fortress.

 

We are staying at the Elephant  Hotel, which was established in the 1400s. It gets its name from the part it played in a gift of an elephant to Archduke Maximillian of Austria from his uncle, the king of Portugal. The elephant was traveling from Barcelona and stopped here in 1551, but was unable to fit under the gate to the city, so it was stabled for two weeks across from the hotel. Of course, this was an amazing event for the people in the area and the hotel decided to capitalize on its notoriety. The hotel has a large garden across the street with a small swimming pool, tennis court, ping-pong table, and space to relax and enjoy a beverage. What it does not have is air conditioning (nor does any other hotel in the area) because weather like the current heat wave (mid to upper 90s through Friday) is a new phenomenon. There is a fan in the room and the thick walls provide some protection from the heat.

The balcony on the right is part of our room. Too bad it
is so horribly hot!

 

Davide took us for a walk around the village, which looks really sweet. We walked around the inner convent walls at the Duomo and then looked at the Baroque inside -- much more ornate than the other churches we have seen so far. Jim and I picked up some wine, juice, pretzels, and chocolate and called it dinner.

Above/Below: This is the entry the elephant could not get past.

 

 

The Rathaus or City Administrative Center

Burial wall at the Duoma

The frescos in the convent were still spectacular.

The short building is an older church on the
same site.

6/23 -- Explore More of Verona, Escape the Heat

We set out with Julie to walk to Castle Vecchio, visit a handcraft fair, take the funicular to a viewpoint, and walk back to Piazza Erbe for lunch. 

We managed to find the Castle despite misreading Google Maps, and enjoyed looking around some. The Handcraft fair was in an adjoining building and both Julia and I found treasures. 

House with a fresco remnant on the way to
the old castle.

 

Probably the balls are catapult ammo

 

Then we followed the river north, which runs around the old town peninsula like a natural 3-sided moat, to a funicular to the top of the tallest local hill. The views were wonderful and the breeze and shade at the top were welcome too.

Above/below: old and  new houses and below, a really
old remnant between them.

 

The funicular returning for us.

 

We took the stairs down and crossed the old bridge we had visited yesterday. As we verified where to go next, I saw the dress store that I thought looked interesting  yesterday and gave it a look. It is so hot, AND the start of a 5 day heat wave, that my dress up options for dinner were too warm. Both Julia and I found another treasure! Then it was on to Piazza Erbe and lunch. Jim and Julia got salads, and I got a little pizza, shared it with Jim, and saved the rest for breakfast, which tells you something about how much I have enjoyed the hotel breakfast so far.

Note the interesting menu options: above is
exotic for the US, below is strange in Italy.

 

We had planned to walk to the top of the Lamberti Tower, first built in the 1100s and rebuilt in the 1400s after a lightning strike damaged it. They wanted 5 euros each to walk up, which also covered an art museum we had no interest in and we learned that it was 368 steps. Having seen the view from the top of the hill and considering that it was after lunch and felt like 90 degrees out, we decided to save $$ and skip it. On our way to an ATM to buy more euros, I spotted a local vendor selling wood products, including a 2 piece slicing board for bread so the crumbs drop down in instead of finding the floor, so I added that to our growing collection to bring home.

On the way back to the hotel, we paused to walk around the arena, where three different operas are in rotation, changing each night. They use a crane to move the big pieces around and store them outside the arena.

Stained glass along the way

 

Back at the ranch, we read and snoozed and showered again to prepare for our dinner out. Julia and I wore our new treasures and discovered some of the other ladies had been supporting the local economy too. The restaurant served a yummy wine I have never heard of called Amarone, first made by mistake when they fermented partally dried grapes for too long. Add a new wine to my list of wines to look for!