Spent the week on a beautiful vinyard near Faenza, a pretty-enough one horse town. Woke each morning to the cries of the resident peacocks prowling the rows of grapes.
Ravenna - celebrated for its UNESCO World Heritage-protected early Christian mosaics. So beautiful I couldn't begin to write more than two sentences about Ravenna. Also visited Dante's tomb, and drove out to see the icky beach resorts where the poor Italians have to go during Summer. God bless New Zealand.
Went to the Ferrari musuem at Ferrara. There were some beautiful cars (of course!) but the musuem was very overpriced and underwhelming. When I am rich, I will buy Lamborghini instead. Having scratched that undeserving itch, we drove to Bologna. This beautiful city is everything that Florence should have been. Bought a swag of English language books and magazines, and ate like royalty (Bologna is known as "Bologna the fat").
Left Italy to visit the tiny city state of San Marino - a bastion of independence for 1,700 years. It's like visiting one of the "lands" at Disneyland - call it "clifftop-castle-land" perhaps. Very interesting, if a bit on the touristy side. Also went to Rimini, with another collection of Roman ruins and Renaissance art. Drove home through a lightning storm.
Padua - lots of interesting things here, but we came for the Capella degli Scrovegni. This is home to Giotto's fresco cycle, the very first revolutionary step towards Renaissance painting. Spent the night at a cheapy hostel so that we were closer to Venice.
Venice - everything we expected! Canals, ferries, water, gondolas, seaweed, beautiful buildings on the water's edge, pigeons, romance, tourists. Quite a mix of things, but all wonderful (well, except for the tourists). Hope to write more about this magical place later.
Rest day at the vinyard feeding peacocks.
NZ WATCH: Dylan Horrocks' "Hicksville" graphic novel for sale at a bookstore in Bologna. Hooray for New Zealand comics! Also met kiwis at the Bologna and Venice train stations.
SORT-OF NZ WATCH: Guy wearing a "I love NZ" shirt at San Marino. I think he was Norwegian :P
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