ARCHITECTURE + AIRBORNE European Travels: TRENITALIA

This weekend was the first real weekend where we were able to plan a small trip to a neighboring area. We chose to go to Padova [written Padua on many maps]. This city is located to the East of Vicenza and has a population of about double where we are living. It was our first choice when looking for apartments, unfortunately many landlords there are not accustom to the military clauses the Army requires in our lease agreement and did not want to add it in.

Public transportation and walking/riding bikes will be our main mode of transportation while living here, and we tested our ‘traveling in a foreign country’ ability by figuring out the Italian trains all by ourselves. Italy has a few different options to travel, all of which are pretty nice.

The first option is the Frecciarossa. This train is the luxury liner here [we have not yet experienced this train, but it seems to have a buffet/food car, wifi and is extremely high speed]. The first leg of our journey was on the Frecciargento which is what I would equate to the Amtrak, except it was only €15 a person instead of $45 and up. We got to Padova in 15 minutes and it was a quick walk to the main city center area.

We walked through the Piazza Della Frutta and Piazza Delle Erbe, which had their local weekend markets of fresh fruit and vegetables and local goods, and found a nice café [Caramel Café] with a small outside table directly in the sun. We had some delicious sandwiches, and I had a Rossini [which is from Venice and is made of Strawberry puree and Prosecco, similar to a Bellini].

*Fun fact: It is named after the opera composer Gioacchino Rossini, who is the author of the Barber of Seville.

We mainly spent the day wondering the streets and browsing through the local stores until we stumbled into Prato Della Valle, where there was another local market set up around the elliptical square, which is said to be the largest in Europe. To the southeast of the square is the Basilica e Abbazia Di S. Giustina, which we were able to walk through. We did not get to see the Basilica Di Sant' Antonio or a few other places this trip, but hopefully we will be back soon.

We decided to try the Frecciabianca on our way back. It took about 25 minutes and I would equate it to the new metro north trains, however at a price of €3.55, it is much cheaper than the metro north. Luckily we observed people pre-validating their tickets before getting on the train. With the local train you buy a ticket that can be used within 60 days and if you don’t stamp it before boarding the railroad polizia will come and get you!

APARTMENT SEARCH

This past Monday we had a meeting with Stefania, our realtor who has been terrific at finding places for us to look at. She showed us four really great apartments throughout the historic center. PJ and I went back and forth for a while on two apartments, even making a pro and con list, which revealed that we actually liked a 3rd option the best and we are now in love with it. It is located on one of the main historical streets in Vicenza and is a short walk to just about everything a person could need. Tomorrow we are meeting with the housing office and Stefania and, pending no problems, signing our 3-year lease. We have already started furniture shopping seeing as it is about 4 times the size of the NYC apartment!

ARMY NEWS

PJ has started settling into Camp Ederle and has been issued a bunch of gear and assigned a temporary office until he moves to Del Din, the new US Army post about 10 minutes away from Camp Ederle.

We recently found out that there are several training schools available for PJ to attend while he is stationed in Italy, however most of them are in Germany. PJ jumps at every opportunity to attend a school and has just come down on orders to attend Pathfinder school, which is a three-week program in Germany where you are trained in navigation, establishing landing and drop zones etc…

This sounds like it might just lead to a Germany trip for me as well!