Fantastic Spring Weekend

Buon Giorno Tutti!  This past weekend we drove south of Venezia to the area where the Po River empties into the Adriatic Sea.  This area attracts us for many reasons, the calm feeling, the old structures, the bird watching areas, and the food offered, mainly fish items and fresh off the boat.  You see above an old brick factory, now abandoned.  There are many of these scattered around as bricks were the main item used to build homes and farms many years ago. 

Tower Building
surrounded  by pay to fish pond

In order to get to an area I wished to paint we had to cross a bridge held up by large metal boats.  In the middle of the bridge a man collects a small fee,  Our car bobbed up and down and a bit side to side when we stopped to pay.  I bet the man who collects goes home feeling the movement long after leaving.

Ibis

When you drive through the country side you have a chance to see many birds because there are canals and ponds by the sea.  We saw flocks of flamingos, many other types of birds, and a bird called Ibis.  We actually saw a whole flock of them, I had never seen them before here in Italy.  They have a strange long curved beak and they hunt for food in the canals and small lakes.  My wife counted 5 pheasants the first day in just one hour.  In the early morning lots of birds arrive to float in the ponds and search for food.  This place is a bird watchers paradise.

We took a lot of photos, especially ones where the age of the building was evident.  This building had lost its roof and a tree was growing from the inside.  It would have been interesting to walk inside and take a look but there was a fence, obviously protecting people from having an accident or injury there.  

This small building also had a tree and many plants growing from the inside of it.  It will become a painting soon, but without the larger and newer building in front.  Artist's licence to remove objects is needed

 here.

It also leans toward the canal in back

There is a huge fishing boat harbor in the small village of Goro, but one also finds the the people living along the canals have their own smaller boats.  This place is a painter's paradise if they like to paint water scenes and boats and old fishing shacks.

A visitor to this area can expect to find the majority of restaurants will be featuring all types of fish.  Fish caught the night before  and brought straight to the restaurant.  There is nothing more fresh than that.  There will be nothing taken out of a box and cooked, nor anything made in a factory and frozen for cooking later.  Our first night we were shown a table with distance from others and the atmosphere was a calming quiet, which sometimes in Italy can be noisy with loud conversation.  Here are a few plates we tried during the weekend.

A small appetizer prepared by a chef who,  after retiring from his restaurant, now serves his cuisine to small groups in his home.

Marinated sardines, always a choice of  mine.  Served fresh, NOT from a can like my mother served it years ago in America.

An appetizer we shared the first night

Since I am a transplanted American now living in Italy I have to admit that I miss the open spaces that I had known  all my life.  Colorado and New Mexico are states where you can  sometimes see  for over 75 miles and roads sometimes are straight where you can drive for 40 miles without moving the steering wheel.  I miss seeing the horizon as where we live near Padova there are trees that block that sort of view.  This area south of Venice (Venezia) is so much more like my old landscapes, but with an addition of water and canals from the Po.  I   feel  calm and tranquil just by being there.  We will go back soon.

I close my eyes and I am back there feeling the calm.

Ciao Tutti!  Next blog will be a comparison of  food.