Italy

The weather this coming week was taking a turn for the worse.  Rain was predicted from Saturday through Tuesday in the entire region.  Everywhere from Austria to Croatia and Slovenia through Italy was forecast with 100% chance of rain and colder weather.  We’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the outdoor activities we have experienced this trip, but the weather wasn’t going to make outside spaces enjoyable for the next few days.

Kamy has been asking to go to Italy for Italian food ever since we went to Western Europe this spring.  Since we CAN go to restaurants despite the rain, we ultimately decided to spend the next several days in northern Italy!  We certainly didn’t plan on being in Italy this trip, but having a flexible schedule means we can go with the flow a bit more.  So, Saturday through Tuesday we were in the Friuli region of Italy.  Kamy has been working on learning a bit of Italian, though she did get distracted by Slovenian this past week …

Saturday

We loaded up our stuff, said goodbye to Rok and Klara, and drove from Slovenia to Udine!  Despite crossing international borders, it was only about two hours of driving to our next AirBNB.  There is something to be said for that!  Since Italy is also in the Schengen zone, we did not have to go through border control either, so the drive was simple.

We checked into our new apartment — a little connected apartment in the town of Pavia di Udine.  The rain was holding off, so after unpacking we went to lunch at Trattoria Al Parco.  The region specializes in grilled meat, so meats dominated the menu.  Our appetizers were the highlight, especially the pumpkin ravioli and the local prosciutto, but all our food was tasty.

It was mostly dry still, so we drove into Udine to explore the city.  We wandered through the main piazza area and around the iconic statues scattered through the square.  We were able to step into the city hall as well, since there was a conference running at the time.

We also checked out the Cathedral of Udine, where Caden lit a candle and I took several photos.  😉  You never know what you’ll find inside each church as the alter pieces and naves can be very elaborate, even if the exterior is simpler.

We visited the Liberte Piazza, walked around the City Hall, and went to the castle up on the hill. The old castle now houses a series of museums, as well as the hall where the city council meets. The Hall was the biggest surprise and was incredible! I especially liked all the family crests around the ceiling. Each one represents the “governor” of the region during a 1-2 year time period. It was interesting to see how certain family crests came up over and over again, as family members and descendants took the reigns of leadership.

We wandered through town a bit longer and found some gelato for a snack.  Kamy’s was the surprise hit — apple cinnamon gelato!

When we were done in Udine, we stopped at a grocery store for basics, ate dinner at home, and then turned in for the night. The weather was a bit drizzly and damp, but nothing too significant. There was definitely heavy rain in the area, but it didn’t directly affect us this day.

Sunday

We drove an hour to the south today in order to visit the town of Trieste, Italy.  It is right next to the Slovenian border and is an important shipping city.  After parking, we tried to check out the Revoltella Museum, but it was very busy with a symphonic concert that morning.  Instead we wandered down along the waterfront and checked out the town.  There was a large Italian Navy battleship in harbor, though we couldn’t get too close to it.

The central plaza in Trieste is beautiful!  There was a small group of military putting together some grandstands but we never found out what they were for. 

We ate lunch at Bianco, a pizzeria.  It was very tasty, though not earth shattering, nor markedly better than we can get at a good pizza place at home.  The prosciutto and Buffalo mozzarella were fabulous though!

After lunch we went back to the museum.  It is a former mansion and art collection of a wealthy Italian citizen, Baron Revoltella.  He was closely involved and part financier of the building of the Suez Canal and had a phenomenal statue by the grand staircase celebrating the construction of the canal. 

Apparently he was well known for his elaborate parties he would throw in this building.  After his death, the mansion and art were donated to the city to establish a museum.

The art collection was excellent as well.  It’s clear Revoltella enjoyed the “finer things” in life.  

Next we walked up the hill to the military officers quarters turned garrison turned fortress.  The largest cathedral in Trieste is up on the hill as well, though we couldn’t see the mosaic ceiling well since the lights were turned off.

The fortress had quite a view of the coastline and was interesting to explore all the nooks and crannies.

After touring the fortress on the hill, we walked down to the remains of an old Roman amphitheater.  It was visible from the road, but we had to look from the sidewalk as it is only open for tourists to explore on the weekends.

We saw a poster earlier in the day for a free concert at the Giuseppe Verdi Theater.  It was put on by the Central European Music Academies Network orchestra, made up of students from musical academies from all over the region.  The concert series was in recognition for the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.  We managed to get a box to ourselves and had a great view!  Both kids really enjoyed the music part of the concert, though we were all a bit bored by the literary readings in numerous languages that broke up the concert. 

After the concert ended, we grabbed a quick dinner at a piada restaurant and drove back to Udine.  The central piazza was very beautiful all lit up at night!

Despite threatening rain, it only lightly rained on us in Trieste and didn’t majorly affect our day.

Monday

On the hunt for some classic pasta dishes for Miss Kamy, we drove about an hour west to Pordenone to Restaurante Dry Bridge.  It had excellent reviews and offered home-style Italian pasta dishes.  We had four different pasta dishes, including carbonara.  Again, the food was good, but not really miles ahead of what we can find at home.  We had gelato for dessert at Gelateria Montreale.

Next we drove to Spilimbergo to visit the Mosaic School of Friuli.  It is one of the leading schools for mosaic artists in the world and offers a 3 year program.  While there were not any classes we could look in on, we could view a ton of neat mosaics displayed in the hallways and we were allowed to poke our heads into a classroom.

On the way back to the apartment, we crossed several swollen, dirty rivers.  Again, most of the rain stayed around us, but we were seeing the runoff of the bigger, stronger storms further inland.  The weather was definitely rainy and cold.  We made a quick grocery store stop for dinner ingredients and spent the rest of the day at the apartment.

Tuesday

Today was very very wet and cold!  The storms were sitting on top of us this time around and there was no way to dodge the rain.  Just parking and walking to the restaurant we picked out left us chilled and soaked from the knees down.  Everyone’s shoes were sopping wet and our jeans were quite uncomfortable.

We had lunch at La Nicchia in Udine, Sicilian Italian cuisine.  It was pretty good and they offered several unusual pasta dishes.  For dessert, we returned to Oggi again for more of their homemade gelato.  We drove back home and packed up for driving to Vienna the next day!

Wednesday

Today we drove from Udine to Vienna!  We cut north through the Alps along the border with Austria and saw many beautiful mountains and surprising waterfalls cascading down into the valleys.  All the rain meant the rivers were flowing quickly.  Fortunately the rain had moved on and we had good weather for the drive.  It took us about four hours of driving to get to our apartment.

We stopped for lunch in Graz on the way, a quick Asian fusion restaurant in the large mall, and then hit the road again.  As we came into Vienna we stopped at the grocery store (see a pattern here?) and then drove to our apartment.  We found an AirBNB a bit out of town that allowed us to park our car out front and then take the bus and subway into the heart of Vienna.  Our host was very friendly and helpful.  While the house we were renting didn’t include a washer, he kindly offered the use of his washer and dryer next door if we needed it.  As we were definitely packing light, we would need to take him up on his offer so everyone had access to clean clothes. =)  Getting to Vienna took up most of the day, so we stayed in for the rest of the evening and were ready to hit the ground running in the morning!