Home » Italy » Veneto - Vicenza

April 1999

Veneto - Vicenza

David Aaronson
2005-09-23 23:33:00

Displayed times (last time: )

be rented through the Landmark Trust organization.

This picture is taken from inside the barn looking towards the watchtower and yes, that is Melanie hiding against the column. Apart from the buildings and the dirt path leading from the gate to the front porch, the rest of the courtyard is grass with a couple of trees scattered about. Outside the walls, crops are planted in all directions which at one point would've been owned and run from the villa.

After the villa, we drove back to Venice via a rather scenic and circuitous route. The Berici Hills are the northernmost extension of the Apennine mountains and the slopes are terraced with vineyards like those shown on the background of this page. We spent our last evening in Venice much like the previous two. Mostly just wandering through the alleyways eating gelato and visiting osterias for the occasional glass of wine. This was our last night in Italy outside of the alpine regions where gelato is not as popular, so we had for our final flavors strawberry and caramel.

Finally, the gondola ride. You just can't visit Venice without a gondola ride, or so they say. But it turns out that a 20-minute ride costs around 100,000 Lire, or about $60. Half an hour costs almost $100. Well what can you do, we signed up for the 'short' ride and once on the canals negotiated for the half hour ride for a little less than that. It was late at night and we saw no other gondolas the entire time which was very nice compared to the day when there are gondola traffic jams. We cruised through the Dosoduro region which is quiet that time of night, and we could hear various domestic sounds from inside the canal-front residences as we went past. It was also high tide when the gondola's curved bow was too high to fit under the bridges as is, so we got to pass under bridges at a 45 degree sideways angle. Afterwards we had another gondolier take a picture of us in with our gondolier. Unfortunately either the one-use Italian camera, or the generally poor lighting conditions ruined the picture. So after extensive processing, this is the best we could get. Besides not being able to see our gondolier, you can also not see the Rialto bridge directly behind us. Oh well. For the record, we do recommend the gondola experience but definately late at night when the canals are less crowded.

Pages: 1 [2]