Treviso, water & history not far from Venice, Italy « Dove Sile e Cagnan s’accompagna » (Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia (Paradiso, IX, v.49)) [Where the River Sile and the River Cagnan meet – by Dante Alighieri, Divine Commedy (Paradiso, IX, v.49) ] Last Sunday I decided to take some friends of ours, who were here for [...]

A peaceful Oasis amidst the hordes of tourists in Venice! All I can hear when people talk about Venice is that the town is overcrowded, there are tourists everywhere, it is impossible to enjoy the city. Well, this is absolutely true if, like what 95% of people do when visiting Venice, you only stick to [...]

Love & Revenge on the Riviera del Brenta in 18th century. An old Venetian saying goes like this: “Chi se tol par amor, per rabia se lassa” that means “who ends up together for love, will leave each other in anger” (Proverbi Veneti Commentati by Mario Massari, Edizioni Milda S.rl.) As Baldasserre Castiglione used to [...]

Simple basic Italian cooking lessons. We did it: finally our video for CookInVenice.com is on line! Arianna and I are really pleased we managed to do this, we have been thinking about it for a while, but never really got around doing it. I would like to thank all our students who took part in [...]

First meet-up for Ex-pats in Venice:what a lovely evening! Since we have returned to live in Italy back in 2000, my British husband and I have been trying to get in contact with English speaking people living in Venice for a long time. Veneto is not Tuscany, we don’t have all the lovely rolling hills [...]

The minor islands of  Venice When tourists come to Venice in their 1 or 2 days tours (which I personally think it’s way too short a duration to see this beautiful city), they often speed through the main monuments areas of Saint Mark’s square and Rialto and if they got some time left they take [...]

Just a quick post with some beautiful pictures of Vlla Pisani In Strà, on the Riviera del Brenta near Venice. The author is a local photographer Franco Amormino, you can see all of his collection on fliker

It’s March 10th and it fells like Christmas Day in Siberia! These are a couple of videos I took of the situation outside the house at 8.30 am, you can hear the wind howling, well it is worse than it looks! Venice’s countryside in the snow storm on March 10th 2010 Countryside in Oriago, near [...]

10 Old Venetian Proverbs about Food, Drink and Family Yesterday at the library in Oriago, my home town, I came across a very interesting book about old Venetian proverbs, many of which I remember from when I was young and many I did not know. The book is called Proverbi Veneti Commentati by Mario Massari [...]

Astronomy and Mineral Exhibition in Villa Farsetti, Near Venice Yesterday, 7th March 2010, here on the Riviera del Brenta was a beautiful sunny and windy day, preparing us for maybe what will be a nice Springtime (we hope). We decided to head for the day to Villa Farsetti in Santa Maria di Sala, a small [...]

VILLA E BARCHESSA WIDMANN IN MIRA, JUST OUTSIDE VENICE I find myself always talking about Venice, but today I decided it was time to talk about the Terraferma (the inland) and about what it can offer to Venice’s visitors. During the Middle Ages Venice looked at the water and the sea as a mean to [...]

7th March: Women’s day – Free entry in all State owned Museums in Venice On 7th March 2010, the Italian Ministry of Beni e Attività Culturali has decided to celebrate International Women’s day by offering all women a free entry to all State owned Museums and Art Galleries in Italy. On this occasion on 7th [...]