I'm now back from a few days' travelling around the northern parts of Italy, where another part of the family lives. Sunday night, following a pleasant pizza, we drove to the castle of Conegliano, buildt in Medioeval times and now used as a museum, tourist and social attraction. It happened to be the night of San Lorenzo, and traditionally Italians believe that to with on falling stars tonight will make your dreams come true! So the scene was even more romantic than usual; walking around the gardens outside the dimly lit castle under a startty night were numerous lovey dovey couples. Although the cafe was still open, there was an intimate quiet which made the evening magical... without any sleazy magicians!
So, our moonlit walk finished, we ended the night with a gelato and got our bags ready for Monday morning.
It was my grandma's biggest nightmare. Not only were we leaving her guard for THREE WHOLE DAYS, but it so happened that my auntie, uncle and cousin were also on holidays and left for a week at the beach! As a reminder, they live upstairs so she is used to seeing family all the time. I hardly doubt we've heard the end of her sufferings :)
So we were on our way to Trento, about 2.5 hrs from Conegliano, where my mum's extended side of the family resides. Specifically, we stayed with her auntie and uncle in Sant'Agnese, population around 500. A quiet and pretty small town in the green mountains, with most buildings a few centuries old. You see charming houses with wooden balconies decorated by geraniums similar to the typical Austrian house; walls made of rocks and stone which keep the houses cool in summer; then, out of this blinded, falling apart window, blasts lous metal music, indicating the likely presence of a male human being, aged 14 - 18. And you snap out of the fairy tale! It is the kind of place where you go for an afternoon walk and you come across noone, except perhaps your second cousin- which funny enough actually happened to my great uncle.
Anyway, on Tuesday morning my parents and I took a walk around the city of Trento, population around 110,000. Now I thought Treviso was spectacular- and it was- but the charm of Trento, a larger town, was characterised by even more fascinating and impressive sights. The castle tower and ca seen around the town; the cathedral is one side of the largest town square with a majestic fountain and numerous cafes. Lining the pedestrian districts nearby are meanwhile centuries-old palaces once inhabited by rich extended families, most now owned by the shire. Coming from a 200-yr-old Australia, this is all very impressive, however the locals are now obviously accustomed to the town's charm.
At lunch we probably had the biggest meal yet (and that's saying something) at a lovely family restaurant on a quiet lake, in the middle of the forest. The kind of atmosphere which just makes you want to be lazy and enjoy life :) we spent the afternoon with one of mum's cousin and her family, leaving them for another of mum's cousins', Andrea. Him and his wife have three beautiful blue eyed boys, the youngest one, 3-yr-old Alessandro, seemed to take a liking to the 'signorina with the pink top', aka.. me! It was a very romantic night for us as our friendship was born and developed into love at first sight. Or maybe it's the other way around? Anyway as a sign of my love for the boy I gave him one of my hair lackies, which made his night. And it was pretty special, because only Rob and my ex have ever owned my hair lackies! :p
On Wednesday morning we were on the road again to Bressanone, to see some great aunties and more cousins.. a fairly boring day unfortunately, as we had little time to see about a billion people, so we felt like we were diasppointing the three families who asked us over for lunch! It was curious to see the German influence as we were so close to the Austrain border. Most signs around town were written first in German, then (in most but not all cases) Italian. This is because the region has only been officially Italian post WWI, it was before Austria, and the Germans havent exactly switched to italian automatically!
Ok that's all for now because dad's nagging me to leave, we're off to Venice for the day with some family friends :) More later! Ciao carissimi :)
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