A drive in the country

4/2/18

Today is a holiday called "Pasquetta" or little Easter and it's traditionally a day when families get together for the first barbecues or picnics of the year. We drove into the countryside to visit one of the "most beautiful towns in Italy," a town called Neive. It is a lovely little town high on a hill with beautiful views over a huge valley of many vineyards with their green base of spring grass and the Alps in the distance. 
We checked out the churches, one a traditional Catholic church and another of orthodox  religion and walked around the town enjoying the architecture and the views.
Catholic churh

Orthodox altar

Then a meander through the countryside to the tiny village of Mango that mysteriously has sun dials painted on many houses, many not in position to ever have the sun shine on them.



Apparently, the town council thought it would add to the appeal of the town to visitors and it does! We enjoyed seeing them and trying to determine if there was any possible way they could actually reflect time of day. More meandering brought us to the tiny village of Camo where the most notable sight was a group of cats all sunning in front of a large building.
Neive had tourists and open eating places but it was too early for lunch while we were there and then every other town we passed through was completely deserted looking and as lunchtime approached we realized that we were out of luck for food but not so terribly far from home that we couldn't come home for a very adequate lunch of leftover pasta. We needed a gelato to complete lunch which was readily available around the corner and then headed out for some more local sightseeing as the clouds started rolling in and the wind picked up.
We decided it was time to hunker down in our cozy apartment for the evening.

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