Castelvecchio
We went to Verona yesterday for the first time (other than driving past on the Autostrada).
It’s been rainy and cold here (it actually snowed about 4 inches on Monday), so I wanted something that would mostly be indoors.
Verona has a small castle called Castelvecchio (old castle) built in the mid-1300’s by the Scaligeri family. Now it houses a museum. You can walk around the grounds for free, but your museum admission also allows you to walk around the top battlements, which is pretty cool.
The museum was low-key. Lots of stone statues, tablets, Middle Ages and Renaissance paintings, and some medieval weaponry (T’s favorite things, of course).
Hubby took a picture of just about every piece of art in the building, while I answered T’s questions of “What are they doing?” with either
“They’re admiring baby Jesus” or 
“They’re taking care of Jesus’ body.” I mean there were a lot of manger/Madonna and cross scenes. A few other things—portraits, John the Baptist’s head on a platter, a couple still lifes. T was very good though. It was helpful that there were very few other visitors, I think.
After Castelvecchio, we walked a little in Piazza Bra, the main piazza by the Arena, which we will have to visit another time. But one thing that was neat was this huge arch coming out of the Arena and ending with a star. 
It is called the Christmas Star, and because I’ve seen several pictures of the piazza without it, I guess it is only out during this time of year? I’m not certain about that. Lots of kids were playing all around it and T. enjoyed it, too.
Easy 80's
Apparently, the Italians (at least those around here) like American 80's music. I suppose there are some stations that don't play the stuff daily, but more often than not, if the song playing on the radio station (whichever one I happen to be on--I only listen in the car) is in English, it's from the 80s. Hubby claims to hear George Michael daily (he's in the car more often than me).
A few months ago, I spent four hours in a salon having my hair done, and every song on the station was an 80's song--but the station was calling it "easy listening." When I commented on it, my hairdresser said this station did this every day--80's until about 3 pm, and then harder (and more Italian) rock music.
Now that I think about it, I can't recall hearing a song in English that
wasn't 80's on an Italian radio station. I did hear a tween girl singing a new Madonna song in the mall a while ago, so I guess they hear it somewhere.
Vicenza
Your typical tourist to Italy is unfamiliar with Vicenza; it might have a small section in tour guides, but unless you are an architectural buff (which I am not), you probably won’t visit this city. Unless you come to visit us. Although we don’t live right in Vicenza, it is where I tell people we live. I guess we’re in a suburb—or the Italian version of a suburb—of the city. It’s in northern Italy, right between Venice and Verona. The population is around 120,000, so it is smaller than Boise, Idaho or Columbus, Georgia. 
Even though we’ve been here for three months, this past weekend was our first family trip to downtown Vicenza. And it is pretty cool. If feels really old. I know that sounds silly, but it feels like I am somewhere so much cooler than Boise or Columbus (and I like Boise and Columbus—I’m really not trying to sound snarky) because this place has buildings and statues and walls that are older than our country. It’s something I’ve heard before and knew about, but being in it and feeling it is different than knowing and thinking about it.
So, anyway. I won’t give you a tour guide description of the place—you can find that for yourself. I’ll post some pictures and tell you the little I know.We just spent about three hours walking around the main section of town that surrounds the street Corso Palladio (Palladio was a 16th-century Renaissance architect—lots of Greek-like columns. This year is the 500th anniversary of his birth, so there are celebrations for his work, which I hope to learn more about as I live here). We didn’t go into any of the sights. There was a Festival of Europe in the main piazza, so we did stroll through that—lots of meat and cheese (and T got a little apron because he likes to help in the kitchen—and he is more enjoyable to walk around with when there’s something in it for him).
On one end of the main drag is the Teatro Olimpico or Olympic Theater, which, again, I haven’t been inside, but we did walk around the
outside grounds and
looked at the statues.
At the other end is this tower
left from when Vicenza was a walled city—which I think is so cool. (Lots of businesses around here have castello—castle—in their name.)
Here are some of the pictures along the main stretch:
These three pics are from Piazza dei Signori,
where the festival was.
This church is called the Church of Santa Corona (the Holy Crown) and claims to have a thorn from Jesus' Crown of Thorns. I haven't been inside yet, but hope to visit in the next few weeks.
Just a sculpture I liked.
This post is not quite as visually pleasing as I'd like. Just getting this done was hard! Hopefully, I'll get better with practice.
Hubby took a picture of just about every piece of art in the building, while I answered T’s questions of “What are they doing?” with either
“They’re admiring baby Jesus” or 
“They’re taking care of Jesus’ body.” I mean there were a lot of manger/Madonna and cross scenes. A few other things—portraits, John the Baptist’s head on a platter, a couple still lifes. T was very good though. It was helpful that there were very few other visitors, I think.
It is called the Christmas Star, and because I’ve seen several pictures of the piazza without it, I guess it is only out during this time of year? I’m not certain about that. Lots of kids were playing all around it and T. enjoyed it, too.
