Most or all of the wall remains, and today there are little cafes and residences and shops inside the city wall. One thing that's unique about Marostica is that on even years in September, there is a big festival in the courtyard that faces the lower castle that features people dressing up and acting out a chess game on a life-sized chess board. I don't know how far back in history the tradition goes - I get the feeling it's a fairly recent invention for the sake of the tourists - but the stones in the piazza do resemble a chessboard, and I guess the analogy of medieval combat is appropriate. So here is a photo of the lower castle and one of Aunt Aleta and me playing chess (I'm a pawn, and I think she's a rook) we gave up when we realized our team only had two people and our opponent had none. I guess that means we won?
Inside the lower castle there were some cool frescoes. One of the funnest (most fun?) things about visiting old castles and villas is trying to decipher the frescoes, or what's left of them. Usually, they're paintings of the crucifixion or of the evangelists or the Good Shepherd or Madonna and Child, and it's fun to use what I know of artistic conventions and early Christian symbols to figure out who and what the paintings are about. Also inside the lower castle was this mantlepiece statue. A winged lion is sort of the coat of arms for Venice, so it's common to see statues or paintings like this all over the Veneto district. I think the reason for the choice of the winged lion is that it is also the early Christian symbol for St. Mark, who is very important in Venice (St. Mark's Basilica is one of the main attractions there, and his body is supposedly buried there). Anyway, I thought this was a really cool sculpture. The expression on the lion's face is really neat.
The church behind me in the next picture is a few hundred yards directly below the upper castle. There are a lot of churches in Italy, too. In fact, there is another church just to the right of where this picture was taken. Both churches were really pretty inside.
This picture of Heidi, Maddy, and me was taken from the upper castle. The view up there was spectacular! This is a strategic place for a castle if you like enjoying beautiful scenery, and if you want to keep tabs on the peasants below and watch for enemies coming from the neighboring kingdom.
Before we headed off to our next destination we paused for some gelato. This picture captures my first gelato experience, and it was a good one. I'm not sure what flavor it was because the name was in Italian, but it was some kind of white flavor with soft chunks of chocolate in it - yum! Heidi says that this gelato was nothing compared to what we'll get in other places (and admittedly, it didn't knock my socks off - Sweet Cream from Cold Stone ranks higher for me), but it was still pretty darn good.
Then we got on the road again and drove through a lovely and precarious mountain pass toward Asiago, of cheese fame (David, I was thinking of you, and wishing you could see the town). Aunt Aleta says that visiting Asiago is like visiting Austria, and the architecture and meadows did have an Alps-ish feel. We didn't spend a lot of time in the town, but we wandered up to the Church in time for Saturday evening mass, and we wanted to go in and see if there were any singers we could listen to. This stained glass window reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, and I really wanted a picture. Unfortunately, it was right above an altar and some kind of important relic, so as people were coming in for mass, they kept stopping here and crossing themselves, which made it very difficult to take the picture discreetly. My picture did not turn out, because I chickened out halfway through and pulled the camera away. Luckily, Heidi was able to snap this one, but not before she got some dirty looks from the locals. So now I'm sort of ashamed, but here's the picture anyway.
This is just a pretty little fountain just outside the church. It has lots of statues of woodland and mythical creatures decorating it. Picture the White Witch's castle in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where the witch showcases all the little Narnians she's turned into statues. The capstone piece is a satyr riding a stag, so if you look closely you should be able to count six hoofs, which I think is a bit excessive. The pic below the fountain is this cool triumphal-arch looking thing on the upper edge of town. We don't know what it is, but it was cool, so here it is.
For me, the best part about Asiago was the pretty meadows that make up the countryside outside the town. I caught these pictures by sticking the camera out the window as we were driving home. Ah, beautiful Italy!
I just have a few more things to say, if anyone out there is still reading. I think my favorite thing I saw today (maybe tied with the Alpine meadows) was a classic Italian scene on the way down from the upper castle at Marostica. It was just a typical pretty yellow Italian house with flowers spilling out of all the windows and an old married couple sitting on the front steps.Two things I learned about Italians: 1) They know how to have a good time. In Marostica we passed by a couple of groups of people - one army reunion, and one wedding party - where the people were all just sitting at tables outside, singing and laughing together (and drinking a little too, I think). I get the feeling that they really like just getting together and enjoying each other. 2) They are crazy drivers. Well, they might not seem crazy if they were driving the exact same way in America, but the problem is that the roads here are so dang narrow and twisty. It does nothing for people who have a hard time managing stress.
One last thing: I'm grateful that I'm not lactose intolerant.
2 comments:
mmm - Asiago cheese is gooood.
Yum! You'd never guess, but apparently Asiago is famous for "speck" as well (ham). I didn't see a single pig on our trip.
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