Trips

Fri., 5/19/23 - Sacile

Marge’s nephew, Craig, and his family (wife, Lisa, and daughter, Stella) moved from Denver to Aviano, Italy in 2022. Craig works at the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano. Since our OAT tour terminated near Venice (just 40 miles from Aviano), we decided to spend a few days visiting at the end of our tour.

Craig, came and picked us up at 10 AM and drove us to the town of Sacile, near their home in Vigonovo, where we have a hotel room for our visit. They have purchased a lovely property (really a villa) with lots of living space and a pool and gardens. It does, however, need lots of renovation.

During our visit, we visited several of the small Italian towns in the vicinity, ate some good Italian food, and had some really good gelato!

Dolomites	Craig and Lisa's villa
Craig and Lisa's villa	Poppy field
Front gate	The pool
Sacile is a typical, picturesque small Italian town. We thoroughly enjoyed walking the streets, taking in the sights, and soaking up the beautiful sunshine.	Hotel Due Leone in Sacile
View from our hotel window	The River Livenza
View from our hotel window	Canoe course on the River Livenza
Sculpture above the canoe course	Hanging sculpture
Perhaps an organ glockenspiel - beautiful wood work	Probably a domesticated Muscovy duck
Duomo di San Nicolò	Duomo di San Nicolò
Duomo di San Nicolò	We stepped out of our hotel and right into the middle of a street race
The race had divisions for all levels of runners from kids to marathoners	We visited the town of Pordenone where we had dinner, looked at the many and wonderfully frescoed façades, and had gelato, of course.
Gelato!	Pordenone
Gargoyle	Gargoyle
More modern sign	Pordenone has many beautifully frescoed façades
On Saturday (5/20), we spent the day visiting more unique towns and seeing the sights each is famous for. The first was Bassano del Grappa, famous for its covered wooden bridge over the Brenta River and locally produced ceramics, to name a few. We especially liked the King Kong Rhino statue outside the Museum della Ceramica.	Ponte Vecchio - Over the River Brenta
Along the River Brenta	Along the River Brenta
WWII bullet holes in building walls	Ceramic store
Examples of local ceramics	King Kong Rhino at the Museum della Ceramica
King Kong Rhino	King Kong Rhino
Stella and Gale	Yummmmm!
Clock and sun dials	Sun Dial
Zodiac clock	The next stop was at Marostica to see the Chess board in the square where they have a live chess game event every other year. It was pouring rain so we had to be careful not to appear to be ice skating while crossing the marble square.
Castle wall at Marostica	Castello Da Basso
Chess board in the square	Chess board in the square (it was pouring rain)
Lion of St. Mark	Church of St. Antonio Abate
Church of St. Antonio Abate	Church of St. Antonio Abate
Church doors	The last stop of the day was at Vittorio Veneto where we wandered along the medieval streets and enjoyed more gelato.
Vittorio Veneto - Flaminino Square and the Cenedese Museum
Vittorio Veneto - narrow, cobbled streets	Meschio River
Nice door knocker	Old façade
Teatro Lorenzo Da Ponte	Teatro Lorenzo Da Ponte - detail on the façade
	On Sunday (5/21) we visited Polcenigo, another charming little Italian town.
Polcenigo - Bell tower of the San Giacomo Church	Sun Dial
	This sign may be lost
Someone has done several pilgrimage walks on the Camino de Santiago
Old mill wheel	Church of San Rocco
Another great gelato place!	On Monday, May 22, it was finally time to make the first move toward returning home. A 6:30 AM flight out of Venice prompted us to move from Sacile to a hotel very close to the airport. On the way from Sacile to Venice, Craig took us to a lovely Italian restaurant so Gale could have spaghetti for lunch. Would you believe we had just spent 17 days in Italy and never saw a plate of spaghetti?! The restaurant was excellent and the spaghetti wonderful. We arose very early on the morning of May 23, took a cab to the airport, and began the long trip home. Venice to Frankfurt, to San Francisco, and, finally, to Tucson at 6:30 PM local time. Too many hours to count. This was, in general, another good OAT trip. We saw a lot. The weather wasn't too bad, more sun would have been nice. And the visit with family at the end was like the cherry on the cake.
We spent three weeks in Italy and didn't get any spaghetti until Craig took us to lunch on the way to Venice the day before we flew home!	Vapor trail over the wing just after takeoff from Venice