Festa Della Zucca (Pumpkin Festival)

A few weekends ago, Dan and I attended the pumpkin festival that is held here every year.  We didn’t get a chance to go last year, so we decided to check it out this year.  It took us about 2 hours to get there, we went on Sunday morning and arrived around 11am. We were lucky as there was no traffic to get into the town.  We parked and walked about 10 minutes to get to the town. Venzone is an old medieval town with it’s walls still up around the town. It’s a pretty neat town, just not with so many people in it. When we first got there, it wasn’t bad. We made our way to the main square, got some food and watched some things that were going on it the streets.

 

Getting close

Walking into the town from where we parked

About to enter through the town walls

A picture of the town wall

First thing we saw….donuts filled with pumpkin deliciousness

Then, I got a pumpkin and ham pizza and Dan got pork on a pumpkin roll

The center of town

They take pumpkin carving to a whole new level

Little bakery stand

People were performing with flags as the band was playing

This little building held mummified bodies, I believe there were 6 of them in there

My neighbor told me that this church was destroyed in an earthquake in the 1700’s, when they rebuild it, they did so with the original stone and put it back together like a puzzle, everything back in its place

Mummified bodies

We were there about an hour and it started getting really busy, you barely could move. So, we decided to leave.  On the way out we saw the huge line of traffic that was waiting to get close to the town….we timed it perfectly.  It was a long drive just for that, since we didn’t spend too much time there we stopped at a mall in Udine since we were going to pass by it on the way home. Malls aren’t around every corner like they are in the states….so, you stop any chance you are near one.  We didn’t buy anything, just looked around.  All in all, it was a good day for us. Glad we experienced it!

Bolzano, Italy

Bolzano is a neat town up the the mountains. It was a bigger town that I thought, but I thought I would see more mountains, kind of like you do when you are in Cortina (another town up in the mountains). 

It took us about 3 or so hours to get there, which is long for a day trip, but definitely possible.  We got in the town, ate a wonderful lunch, shopped the market they were having in town and walked around looking in shops.

After we finished in Bolzano we went to a place called Siusi, where we could take a 15 minute gondola ride to the top of some mountains, it was amazing up there.

Going back down….this picture was taken through the dirty plastic cover, so it isn’t the best

A fat pig loafing in a yard. Once again, it was through the plastic and it wasn’t wanting to focus on the loafer

All in all, it was a pretty good travel day.

Caves and Lipica, Slovenia

Recently Dan and I went to Slovenia to check out the Skocjan Caves. They were pretty neat, it was amazing inside.  They wouldn’t let us take pictures inside, but here are some off google.

Pretty huh?  It was pretty amazing walking over this bridge.

After the caves we went to Lipica, where lipizzaner stallions are trained.  It’s a pretty intense training, I kind of felt bad for the horses and all the training, but they didn’t seem to mind it.  They are beautiful and the things they can do are amazing.

Croatia in July

In July Dan and I went to Croatia. We checked out the Istria region, which many neat little towns. I took a lot of pictures, I will try my best to get some good ones posted.  We visited the towns of Umag, Novigrad, Porec, Rivinj, Pula and Rt Kamenjak.

 

This was a southern part of the Istria region, people to go swim and cliff jump. The water was beautiful.

Someone just jumped in

Dan and I just went for a few nights, but we stayed in a really nice hotel that was only a 2 minute walk to the water where we could watch the sunset.  It was beautiful. We are wanting to go back and visit more of Croatia, especially Plitvice National park and Zagreb.  That will have to be another long weekend…perhaps Thanksgiving?  We will see!