Presepio

In December, people in our village began making beautiful Christmas decorations and "Presepe" - nativity scenes.  Families often made their own manger scene and placed it on their window sill or tucked it into an alcove in their yard or by their front gate.  Someone (the town council? little old ladies out of their own love for their village and the Season?) put up decorative stars along buildings and walls and lovely pine bough and heart decorations throughout town, including one on the side of our own house.  We were enchanted with the transformation of the town and added our own "Presepio" on our window sill.    

Our Presepio, nativity from Germany

Our neighbors put up this gorgeous scene, with a painting for the backdrop and a real branch for a tree and shepherd figures with their sheep in the foreground.  It was absolutely beautiful - the pictures don't do it justice.  

Tante Auguri - 'many greetings'

We heard about another village in the nearby area that is famous for all the Presepe that they tuck into every nook and cranny and space possible.  Since we enjoyed the ones in our own village so much, we went to explore the town of Poffabro one evening.  It was so much fun following the signs like this one: 

We meandered around this mountain village's winding, narrow streets, looking for the next sign to indicate another magnificent, elaborate manger scene.  Entire villages were depicted in these scenes, some of them with lit up "fires," running water, and other moving parts.  It was incredible!  

This one had an actual rocking cradle for the baby Jesus!  

look at the gorgeous clouds and dripping snow.

I liked this cute handmade one....

...because of the vegetable patch! :)  

this one had a "real" lit-up burning fire

the detail in these creations was truly exquisite.

Though there were a few very strange scenes (Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus "under the sea" - I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of that one.  Yes, Mary was a mermaid, if you must know.), there were also some clever, cute ones... most of these were contributed by the local businesses: 

the medical clinic's 'modern' hospital room :)  check out the MRI machine and the cow! 

the fire department, trying to reach the cast-out Holy parents on the top floor of a burning building . Ha! 

And my personal favorite, the local sporting goods store's display.  Paul didn't believe me that this one was in fact a nativity at first - very clever.  ;)  

As you can see, Vivian and Clara enjoyed it as much as we did.  Even though it was a cold evening, running through the streets and corridors kept them warm.  

Buone Feste - happy holidays - we are enjoying our's in Italy very much!

Castello Polcenigo

Every morning I look forward to opening our windows and gazing upon the castle of Polcenigo looking down on us; the view was in fact part of the appeal of this house for us.  Though it now more resembles a Venetian villa, the ruins are open to explore at will and remains of the previous traditional medieval castle are still visible.  A brief history: the site itself dates to at least 875, when a French count was granted the land.  One of the legends attributes the namesake of Polcenigo to the Count's daughter, a maid of extraordinary beauty, "poucelle" in French.  The fortress was rebuilt in 963 (REbuilt! and that really is 963, not a forgotten "1"!)  and the town itself officially dates from 1200. So our 400 year old home isn't really all that old, considering it's surroundings....

Anyway, the castello ruins are an easy hike from our house and the girls love exploring "our" castle.

Our first explorations were in September, which is when all of these photos were taken.  If it dries up enough anytime soon we plan to go up again and try to take some more pictures now that there is less foliage; hopefully we'll be able to see our house from the hilltop.  

Polcenigo, as seen from the castello road.  

Don't they just look like they're conspiring?  These sisters are two peas in a pod.  

Vivian, near the old fireplace 

View of our street from the castello.  Our house isn't visible...perhaps after the leaves have dropped?  

Thankfully, Vivian shares my love to explore every single castle ruin that we possibly can.  Together we can  combat Paul's opinion that is best summed up as "once you've seen one castle, you've seen every castle" because while he may be able to blow off my request to stop and check out THIS "new to us" castle, wherever it may be....he cannot say no to sweet Vivian's pleas to go and have a look around.  :)

Palazzo Viviani

Palazzo Viviani, upper right corner

When looking for a place to spend a long weekend in early October, I came upon an email for discounted reservations to stay in a medieval castle called "Palazzo (Palace) Viviani."  After doing a bit more research, we felt that it was meant to be for us to spend the weekend there - Vivian certainly thought so - she was so pleased to find HER castle!!  Palazzo Viviani is located a bit further south in Italy than our area - it is east and slightly north of Florence, near San Marino, about a four hour drive from our home.

We arrived late afternoon on a Saturday and stopped at the bottom of the castle in a small parking lot, unsure if we could drive our car into the castle grounds.  Paul briefly walked up and discovered that yes, we could - at least to unload our bags - and attempted to do just that, only to discover that our car would not start.  Several hours and interesting translations involving alligator clips for jumper cables later, we drove our jump-started car around for awhile and returned to the hotel, and: zilch.  No battery.

As the next day was Sunday we were unhappy as to our prospects for exploring the area - the castle itself is in a quiet little town from which we planned to drive and check out the nearby sights, that certainly weren't a walkable distance away.  We didn't even attempt to ask the staff about the possibility of a shop being open on a Saturday evening because usually even the gas stations close at 6 pm, and the entire country seems to shut down on Sundays, except for, of course, the restaurants.  So it was our lucky day indeed when we trundled down to breakfast Sunday morning and the server, who had helped jump the car the day before, asked about it.  When we said it was still dead, he explained that his good friend is the local mechanic and he would simply call him and ask for assistance.  The man showed up a bit later, with several batteries that he assumed would fit our car!  On a Sunday morning, no less!!



So we were unable to do as much sightseeing as we had planned on Sunday but were VERY thankful for our good fortune and a working vehicle.
We drove to the nearby beach (you can just see the Adriatic from Palazzo Viviani - see the hazy blue strip above the horizon, left).





Though it was 71 degrees and decent weather, albeit cloudy and a bit windy so not exactly ideal swimming weather, most of the Italians walking by on the beach were  wearing heavy jackets and scarves wrapped up to their chins.  You can only imagine their scandalized looks when our swimsuit clad children waded into the water.  Not a few glares were cast in our direction when children, equally bundled up, presumably asked their parents why they could not play in the water as well?

 

Vivian was SO excited to play in the sand and the water - she had been asking to go to the ocean since we arrived in Italy - of course we didn't want to tell her no when the weather was okay.  So, Paul and I just smiled and laughed, considering the water and the day were warmer than most of the time when our families swim in Rainy Lake and in the U.P.  Granted, these Italians are used to far hotter summers than we are in our northern U.S. climates and I realize that it is all relative- evidenced when I thought I might die from the heat in August and they do not seem bothered by it, even with the overall absence of air conditioning - but it was still amusing.

We also checked out a few of what appeared to be small castles on nearly hilltops in the area, but turned out to be sort of walled in small city-towns.  We were a bit disappointed in these after spending a good deal of time circling in to find these castles that appeared on each high spot, only to find no real castle at all - but they were interesting to explore in and of themselves.

One of my favorite moments from the trip occurred after we passed some sort of table for a club or something, from which older ladies were asking people to sign up for things, obviously something that had no meaning for us as tourists.  We nodded politely and said "buonasera" as usual and passed by, but then Vivian cried out, "Hey Mom! Why didn't you stop?"  When we explained that it was something just for local people, she said "No, no, they asked you if you wanted to have the red balloon for your children.  Why didn't you say yes that we want the balloon?" Vivian had only been in  Italian school a few weeks, but as almost no English is spoken there, she already understands far more than we do.  We had to explain to her that she needs to let us know if she thinks people are asking us something, especially if it seems important, or if she thinks she understands something that we don't.  I was so proud of my little Italian speaker!  I think she will soon be fluent :)  Sadly it was too late as the ladies were packing up the table and had given the balloon away elsewhere.  I think Vivian will speak up sooner next time!

Other than her name being on all of the signs and hotel paraphanalia, Vivian's (and Clara's too) favorite part of our stay was the cats and kittens all over the castle grounds.

 

We had a visitor to our photo opp....Vivian points....

...And a cat emerges from the bushes!

Several cats must have had kittens recently because they were everywhere and several were friendly enough to allow the girls to pet them.  Every time we stepped out of our room, Vivian cried "il gatto!" and ran to find the next cat.  The girls enjoyed it so much.  Some of the cats - eh, not so much.  I think there are a few more terrorized cats there than before we arrived...

Paul and I were more excited about the delicious food we ate (the hotel breakfast boasted several cakes and pies each morning, in addition to typical European breakfast fare of fresh bread and cold cuts, fruit, yogurt, fresh granola, cereal, and eggs and bacon for the Americans) and the relative quiet (other than the noise provided by our own energetic girls) during the  much less-busy "shoulder season".

Our Sunday night dinner and Monday morning breakfast were private dining!  The fish grotto was delicious, complete with fresh local flat bread and seafood that tasted like it had been caught that day.  Paired with local vino, of course.  Wonderful!

I loved this view of the wine cellar - doesn't it just make you want to explore down there? And sample some of it's contents??  You can just barely see the cask down at the bottom in the photo at right...just out of reach... :)

Of course, our trip would not have been complete without gelato, too.  And the name of this shop is one of our favorites to add to the archives:
Gelato Mania!  

The girls also had fun on the arcade rides next door.  Yeehaw! 

Paul says, good til the last drop.  Also, can you spot the photographer in the reflection of the glass?  :) 

Final favorite photos from in and around Palazzo Viviani, Castello Montegridolfo.  Seriously, there were so many great pictures that I had to pick and choose even which ones to include here!  Vivian especially loved "her" castello- she was smiling and posing for pictures everywhere.  Fun memories at Palazzo Viviani!  

 

We really want one of these swings in our future yard.  Fun! 

A fitting sunset to cap our fantastic and beautiful trip!