veneto

As we rode the vaporetto from the airport in Venizia, Holden made this comment, "Everything is so pretty, the buildings and everything, except the water it looks really dirty."  It's funny how keen a three-year-old's observations can be, so honest and untarnished, so true.  

Holden was super excited (and a little confused) about Venezia because I had told him that there were no streets and no cars there.  I explained that instead of streets, there was water (canals) and instead of cars there were boats.  He was a little relieved to find that there were indeed sidewalks for people to walk on, though.  Once we arrived, he understood what I meant and was a bit fascinated at first.  He was really hoping that the hotel had an entrance at water level with a boat just waiting there to take us wherever we wanted to go as some of the palazzi we had passed had and was slightly disappointed when we arrived at Casa Verardo.  

Luckily though, it was a pretty nice hotel (despite Holden's disapproval) that housed a beautiful interior garden because we ended up spending a lot of time here.  The first afternoon we were able to visit a famous Carlo Scarpa building, the Querini Stampalia foundation, and then on our second day in Venizia Holden awoke with a horrible stomach virus that stayed with him throughout the duration of our trip through the Veneto region.  

He went through waves of being really sick and then slight recovery so we were able to venture out from the hotel for a few adventures, including the architecture biennale.

And walks through piazza San Marco and in the neighborhoods of Santa Croce and Dorsoduro provided some nice scenery.

And then I got sick on our way to Vicenza-the city of Palladio and then Dave got it the next day so Vicenza was a bit of a blur (thus the lack of pictures here).  On Thursday we all felt better by evening so we went to the nicest restaurant in the centro (center of the city) and ordered three bowls of plain white rice (the most expensive rice I've ever eaten) and it was totally worth it as it was our first meal since Venezia.  

Once we were feeling a little better, Holden and I really enjoyed the centro of Vicenza and the Piazza dei Signori adjacent to the Palladian Basilica.  After a very long day spent inside the hotel, we walked outside in the evening and heard a beautiful violin being played by a young boy no older than 10.  There was a very nice market in the piazza the next day and we were able to muster up enough energy to browse a bit and even found a toy store and a children's store that allowed Holden to sit and play at a table full of toys while I bought him a winter coat.  

This was really all that we did in Vicenza, but I have a few photos Dave took on the Palladian tour with the students the day before he got sick.  Luckily I was able to visit Vicenza in 2000 and had already seen the Palladio and Scarpa works that the students were there to study.  

On Friday we left Vicenza for Verona, which is incidentally the setting of Romeo and Juliet, and everyone was feeling much better, or so we thought.

After an afternoon of touring the Roman amphitheater and Carlo Scarpa's Banco Popolare, Holden had a recurrence of the stomach virus and we ended up spending the night in the ospedale (hospital), where he was treated for dehydration.  This was a bit scary as we didn't know the city or how the hospital/emergency room situation worked in Italy, but we were told by the pharmacy to take him directly there and they helped us understand how to take a taxi to the emergency room and there were some people in the emergency room who spoke enough English (including Holden's doctors) that we felt confident that he was getting the care he needed.  In fact, we had a beautiful room, with very kind doctors who checked on Holden frequently throughout the night and they even let both Dave and me stay in the room which was not supposed to be allowed just because they understood our situation and were compassionate.   

So Holden spent a very peaceful night in the hospital in Verona and then we returned to the hotel the next morning.  All of the staff at the hotel were very concerned with Holden as well.  He was treated like a little prince, as he has been most of the time here in Italy.  We took it really easy for a few days.  his particular weekend in Verona, there was a congregation of a military group called the Alpini and on Sunday, before our departure, they had a very large and very long parade that we sat and observed for awhile.  

It was a nice way to spend the morning for Holden, who was still in recovery.  Then when Holden was feeling up to it, we found a playground near the arsenale for him to swing and run around a little before catching our train back to Genova.  We finally arrived back in Genova after almost two weeks of travel and were very glad to be back at the villa.  And we were very glad to have received the package of books from Barcelona that we shipped to ourselves so we wouldn't have to carry them around on all those trains (I was a little worried we would never see them again) and a postcard from Finn!  And we were finally allowed to use the upstairs bath, which for those of you who know Holden and me know that this is probably the best gift we could be granted!