This week we had new missionary training in Milano, at the Cimiano chapel, for 16 new missionaries and their trainers. I gave them my almost hour long presentation on finances and bikes, after which we fed 38 missionaries lunch. Myrna made barbecue (Heinz sauce even) chicken in crock pots, on sesame see hamburger buns, potato salad, carrot sticks, and Texas sheet cake, which they enjoyed. It was a lot of well organized (it is getting better every time) work, but rewarding. Myrna (I went with her, of course) also went to the dentist (endodontist David helped us find) in Milano, who started €2,200 of work on a molar. They (his student actually) took out the crown, found 4 nerves, in one tooth, and cleaned them out, there was infection she has probably had for a long time, and put in a temporary filling, on which he will put on a porcelain crown. She was in some, but not an excessive amount, of pain. Then on Friday, after finishing our "work" drove we to Vicenza, about 2 hours east, to spend time with all (except one, who couldn't come), of the senior couples in our mission, including President and Sister Allen. We had tickets for the famous pageant in Marostica, a relatively small medieval town, which they put on only during even numbered years for three nights in September. We also saw some other cool things, which I will show and describe in the pix below.
Back of the new missionaries and their trainers, 38 in all, practicing approaches, with each other at new missionary orientation. The sisters were in front. I presented, using PowerPoint, about finances on their debit cards (how to safely use them, etc.) and bike safety, etc. Myrna made lunch for them,
When we got to Vicenza, we learned that one of the other seniors, Elder and Sister Rust, from Pordenone, attended a three day class in making mosaics, with chipped marble, and showed us when we got together at Elder and Sister Larsen's large (3 bedroom two bath) apartment a for nice lunch they made for us. There were 8 couples there: Allen, Larsen, Ferrara, Salatino, Rose, Rust, Clark and Hoopes, Koch's, a new couple from Switzerland, who are in Ancona, a long way, did not come.
We then went to the nearby leather purse factory show room, where Myrna actually bought a new purse.
Since it is near a US Military Base, at Vicenza, they have a lot of English shoppers. I believe they sell their leather goods in major department stores all over the world.
This is pretty much the entire store, but the factory part is quite large, although it is in a very residential neighborhood in a small town.
We drove to another small town nearby. They all try to outdo each other with their church bell towers, which also make pretty good landmarks.
In this little town there are lot of ceramics factories. This one was quite large and also has a lot of US shoppers. Out front they have their Madonna, they are everywhere in Italy.
Behind Madonna is a pomegranate tree, which had lots of fairly ripe fruit, although I did not pick one. The factory is fairly open, I guess to let out the heat, and the kilns were in operation. We walked past them to go up to the next floor, where the show room and store was located.
This is the shipping area we walked past.
You could buy good stuff as well as "seconds", which cost much less. Myrna bought a long serving plate, for the muffins she makes for the mission office, and I bought a bowl shaped like a crab, on which I will put my hearing aids at night, so I can find them in the morning.
I should have taken more pictures, they had a lot of very pretty ceramic ware, which is also sold at name brand stores in the US and elsewhere. There were no signs saying I could not take pix, but I felt somewhat funny doing it.
It is organized somewhat by color. The items cost are from €2 to about €20 each. (My crab was 2 and Myrna's muffin plate was 7.) We would have liked to have bought more, but they would be hard to get home.
Then we drove up, along with Salatinos, in the President's car, to the small hotel in a tiny town on the side of the hill that we found on Booking.com, for €68. It was very nice and we would stay there again.
Then we drove to the nearby (maybe 5 miles) town of Marostica, which has about 14,000 population. It has a wall around the old part of town, alongside which we found parking for the evening event for which we bought tickets several months ago.
The senior missionaries gather. We got there at 6 pm, and the event did not start until 9 pm.
There is a map of what is inside the ancient city walls, in red, and we saw what looked interesting to see during our walk around town before dinner.
The ancient gates into the city are narrow. Shops and restaurants, etc., are along the side of the streets, typical of old Italian cities.
We found a restaurant that would seat us together, inside an air conditioned back room. It was fairly warm outside, otherwise, it would have been nice to eat outside.
Waiting for our dinner to arrive we took a few pix, on the end the President is taking a pix.
Some had raw (cured) ham from Parma over melon (cantaloupe) with olives, which is a large appetizer, or meal, depending on how hungry you are.
This is mozzarella (like used on pizza) from buffalo milk (more expensive and better than cow milk, from which most mozzarella is made) with tomatoes, basil, and olives. Typically dressed with olive oil and basalmic vinegar, eaten with lots of crusty bread. This is a very traditional Italian meal.
Myrna and I each had a bowl of risotto. They had two kinds, ours had a kind of sausage with rice, on which we added lots of Parmesian cheese, and they also had pumpkin (it was pretty orange) with rice, with a few spices we could not identify. We all tasted it, but I am glad we chose what we did. It was very flavorful, and quite filling. This is considered a "first" course in Italy, second would be meat, and third some dessert or cheese. Some of the missionary couples also had pasta with red sauce, which is also a primo piatto (first course). No one had second or third courses, but we did have gelato at a store after our walk around town. I had lemon, which was wonderfully cooling.
Up the street you could see the upper end of town, with the castle. There were walls going around town and up the hill. You could pay to walk on the walls, but you have to be in pretty good shape and have more time to do it. We may go back sometime, it looked pretty cool.
In Italy there are a lot of tiny open chapels all over, where there are altars, statues and pictures. On some you can even put in a coin and it will light up at night.
Someone's house is actually within the wall of the city. This person had their red chair outside where they could sit and watch people coming and going.
The crescent moon came out at about 8 pm, as seen behind this church bell tower. The bells do ring on the hour and sometimes on the half and even 15 minutes.
There are about a dozen old churches within that small town, this one, at the top of the street, has lights for night.
At the other end of that street, facing the town piazza (square), they had erected bleachers for the guests who will attend the event, held each night from 9:15 until 11:30 for 3 consecutive nights on the second weekend of September on even numbered years. When we showed our tickets, they checked our bags. It was interesting they wanted to see all plastic water bottles and made us take off the lids, drink a bit, and throw the lids away. I guess they were making sure the liquid was drinkable (not flammable) and without a lid you could not throw it and hurt someone.
We waited about fifteen minutes for the event to start. There was white cloth, with the word "Dream" (interesting it was in English) over the part of the city square under which the marble squares form a giant chess board. This is otherwise the city piazza, with a fortress, with its impressive gates, at the far end. This kind of a square is also typical of Italian towns.
The first thing they did was sprinkled the edges of the chess board with flammable liquid, then archers shot flaming arrows at it, so it lighted up. They had different color lights and the sound system was very good, you could hear well, without echos. This is a first class pageant.
There were different things happening in the square at the same time, so there was something for everyone.
The townsfolk and then the royalty started to arrive, all in their period costumes, with period music.
Girls doing traditional dances. It sort of reminded me of a temple dedication cultural event x 10 and in a square where this sort of thing actually happened centuries ago. There was an orchestra at one end which played very ancient sounding music on traditional, as well as modern, instruments. They had wonderful sound effects. Church bells played quite frequently and were very loud.
On the end opposite the fortress the royalty were formally presented and sat for the event.
Performers kept coming from and going into the fortress, seen at the end (you may have to enlarge this and lighten it up). The church (Catholic, of course) was represented by several monks and a priest, who led a small donkey around. There was also a "joker," who represented the devil, who was in and out of everything, as though he was part of everyone's lives, tempting them. For the most part they ignored him, but he really tried hard to get them to do things. I found that quite interesting.
The nobility from all of the cities in the area (province of Venice) came, each with the banner from their city, to be formally presented and become part of the event. This took quite a while, but was interesting to see the different banners and costumes, which were authentic.
There was a very skilled troop of drummers and another of trumpet players, and another troop of young men who carry (and toss, etc.) large silk banners, representing the various cities. They do a lot of flag tossing at various times during the event.
The basic story is that there are two young men (knights, if you will) who want to marry the king's beautiful daughter. She does not know which to marry, so it is decided they will play a chess game, and the winner will marry the princess, but the loser will get to marry the equally beautiful cousin.
So the knights, with their armies, arrive and at the other end of the piazza. I didn't get a good pix, but the white knight had a most beautiful white horse, who really looked the part. They set up a chess game, on an elevated table, but what they did on the chess board was shown by live, costumed, chess figures, (people), including horses, etc. on the piazza.
The actual chess game takes about a half hour, and was quite interesting, even if you don't know much about chess, which I don't.
Satan, the guy in black to the right, goes everywhere, even between people's legs and snakes around. At various points he even comes onto the bleachers to tr to tempt the spectators.
This is as close as the devil came to us. I was so engrossed in what was going on (many different things all at the same time), I didn't see him until he started leaving our set of bleachers.
A little later on Satan came in on stilts, and he was very skilled at using them. He could run and weave around. It was impressive. (I took videos, which I don't know how to put on this blog yet.)
The chess game continued, until the white knight won the fair maiden. But the black knight won the cute cousin. There was a wedding, performed by the king (interesting that there were priests and monks there, but the father married them, by tapping their shoulders with a sword, pronouncing them husband and wife, in local dialect, which sounded more like Spanish than Italian. I could understand what was going on, even though it was all in local dialect.
I was very impressed by the guys with flags, which always had drums to accompany them. It was hard to get good pix because of the lighting. They could toss the flags up quite high, catch their own, and throw them to each other, always catching them. Once one guy did a very impressive routine with two flags and this was the only time we saw one "dropped, but he was very good at recovery.
I did take video, which turned out okay, and you can hear the drums and music, from the orchestra, well, but, again, I don't know how to put video on this blog.
At the end, the actors all went back into the fortress, in groups with their representative music. The pillar in the square has, at the top, the lion of St. Mark, which represents the province of Venice, where this city is located. What made this so interesting to me was the real stuff, centuries old, that is always there. The story is somewhat based on historical facts, but was, none the less, a pageant produced for spectators, mostly Italians, but quite a few Americans from the nearby base.
This pix shows the beginning of the end, with the actors going towards the fortress, which you can sort of see in this picture. It is a real building, I believe used as the city hall, etc.
Then the fires began, with more flaming arrows, and finally fireworks from the top of the castle, along with music and church bells. It was very impressive.
Fire coming down, fire going up.
It was sort of amazing how quickly we were able to exit the bleachers and be on our way. The event was very well organized, especially for Italy.
We got to our hotel about 12:30 am, and quickly fell asleep. At 8 am we went down to breakfast, which we had outside, at the hotel. The weather was very comfortable. It was a typical Continental breakfast: croissants, ham, cheese, yogurt, fresh squeezed juice, and hot chocolate (not shown), brought our for us when we said we don't drink coffee. There were 3 other couples staying at the hotel, which has about 20 rooms, as far as we could tell, and they treated us royally.
I took this pix as I walked in front of the town hall, just down the street from the hotel, mostly so I could remember the name of the little town, in case we want to go back. It was, as you can see, Fara Vincentino.
I wanted to go inside the village church, to check out the organ in the back balcony, where they usually are. I left at the end of breakfast and was back within ten minutes, while the others were finishing their breakfast. This organ, I think, was built in the late 1700s or early 1800s, and the mixture of pipe metal was heavy on the lead side, so the pipes list somewhat. During the Napolenonic war they melted down a lot of organ pipes for the lead, especially in France, but this one was apparently unscathed.
Coming down the hill we could see vineyards, and they were out harvesting grapes, by hand, putting them in large wagons to to become wine and wonderful basalmic vinegar. I was driving, so I could not take pix.
We went past the town, Marostica, where we saw the pageant, with its wall and castle on the hill, but you can also see in this pix that Italy has modern technology, in the solar panels on the roof of the apartment building. There are actually quite a few around that we have seen.
We went to a nearby old city, founded 2 centuries before Christ, by the Romans, called Bassano del Grappa, at the base of these mountains. It has a population of about 50,000, but we have no missionaries here, it is too small. Too bad, it is a beautiful city.
There were guys out in the Brenta river, in waders, fishing.
The water must not have been too cold.
When we looked down from the bridge we could see fish in the river. They were pretty big and looked like some type of trout.
Other people were playing in the river.
This sign, we passed as we were walking from where we parked the car, parking is always a problem in Italy, towards the river, says that on the 19 of August, 1748, at 9 in the night the Brenta (river) arrived at this place, but thanks to St Antonio of Padova and God, the people were preserved.
We crossed the river on a covered wooden bridge. It sort of reminded me of Cottage Grove, with its covered bridges, although this one is centuries old.
I saw this sister (nun), in the black habit, looking at something in the window of this bakery.
It was a local specialty bread, sort of like pizza, sold by the kilo.
At the end of the bridge there was a small museum of the Alpini. They are sort of like Marines, tough guys, but for the mountains, where they rescue people and also fight wars when their enemies try to invade from the alps. They are distinguished by the feathers in their caps. They have fought in all the was, and there was a lot of stuff there from previous wars, including WWI and WWII.
Like their hiking boots.
This wicker boot reminded me of what the ice age guy was wearing when they found him in the glacier a few years ago, now at a museum in Bolzano.
A concentration camp uniform, and sprayer that Americans used to spray the people with DDT.
On the side of the buildings by the bridge there were still bullet holes in the walls, from the war, with a reminder plaque.
There was a metal statue of an Alpino kissing his girl, so we had fun trying to imitate. Sort of reminded me of doing this in San Diego, except this one was certainly not as impressive.
This city also has a castle in the middle of it.
And walls, built during Roman times, around the city, with small gates.
The sign on the right says that Napoleon slept here, twice, during Sept 1796 and again during March 1797. Must be an okay house, at least at that time.
We walked up to an old hospital, built in the 1700s, to the right, where, during the First World War, the American author, Earnest Hemmingway, was a driver for a Red Cross ambulance. They now have a Hemmingway museum in part of the old hospital. All of his books have been translated into Italian, and he is quite famous here.
Here he is (in wax) at his writing desk, with his rum bottle in front of him (he was apparently an alcoholic), and some mounts of the big game he got in Africa. He died in a plane crash coming from Sun Valley, Idaho, we learned.
We had a nice lunch, with the other missionaries, at a restaurant, which treated us well, and the cashier asked about the church. Myrna and I each shared a pizza (ham) and a green salad. Then we headed home. It was another great weekend P-day on our mission in Italy.
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