Vicenza, Italy

Buon giorno,

We're off to Italy, the land of Tommy's dreams, where he can eat pasta for every lunch and dinner and snack on gelato every afternoon.

Having already visited Venice in April, we decided to skip the summer crowds there. So, after arriving early this week (without my luggage, alas), we first traveled to Vicenza, home to some of the great architectural works of Palladio.

In Vicenza, we stayed for 3 days at Villa Pasini, a lovely place surrounded by vineyards, with a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. Even better by Anna and Tommy's standards, Villa Pasini had two resident dogs, two resident cats, two other kids who spoke English among the guests, and lots of room to run and explore and eat grapes right from the vine.

We first rented bikes to tour Vicenza, hitting highlights in the largely tourist-free town, like Palladio's Teatro Olympian (begun in 1580, seen in the first and second pictures below with Anna outside the theater and the stage inside the theater) and cruising out to famous villas in the countryside, like Palladio's Villa Capra, best known as La Rotonda. La Rotonda (seen in the fourth and fifth picture below), has columns on all four sides and has inspired numerous buildings like Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello.

Vicenza has fabulous shopping, too. But to both my relief and chagrin, just when I was about to begin replacing my clothes in the lost bag, the airline delivered it to the villa. Of course, my clothes in that suitcase didn't look nearly as fabulous as the stuff I saw in the Vicenza shop windows.

That said, I'm sure to find other shopping opportunities in Italy.


Ciao,

Kim