A building facade

Another nice view of Portogruaro. Inside the city walls, there are two main parallel streets and on each side of the street medieval buildings with arcades (covered walks). It is very interesting to walk looking up to these buildings and admire windows and facades.

Town gate

Portogruaro has a very pretty medieval center; all around it city walls with some distinctive gates. This is the porta di Sant'Agnese that is Saint Agnes Gate. It's my favorite.

Pyracantha

These are flowers of Pyracantha Rosaceae, in English Firethorn, that makes a wonderful hedge. It makes these small white pretty flowers in Spring and non edible red and yellow berries in summer, among very long thorns. (This is why it is such a good plant to make hedges out of!)

Kindergarden feast

The public kindergarden of Concordia last Friday had the "end of the school year" feast. Kindergarden (for children aged 3 to 6) is still open all June but many families go to the seaside in June, so the feast is made at the end of May. All the classes - 4 classes, about 100 children - worked all year round on taking care for our environment. The feast was called "the party of the trees". All children wore T-shirts hand painted (by themselves) and sang songs and danced with their teachers. At the end they all received a tree to be planted at home. It is a Carpinus Betulus that is a Hornbeam.

Pretty entrance

I really like looking at other people's houses' entrances and windows. I often see very pretty spots and flowers and plants that decorated homes in a very delicate way.

Unity of the faithful

This sign above the Cathedral's main portal reminds the faithful to come in unitate spiritus, that is in spirit's unity.

A wedding

The bride and the bridegroom are still in the Cathedral completing the wedding cerimony. Meanwhile, friends wrap their car with toilet paper and plastic wrap. The car inside is full of white and red heat shaped balloons!

Going to the seaside

This is one of the roads going to the seaside. It is commonly called la bassa (roughly the low one) because it runs parallel to the coast and quite close to it. It is a county road. The bigger road - a regional road - runs parallel too but a bit farther .. with more traffic too!


(I'm sorry for the quality of the picture .. quite over exposed)

Wine bottle caps

Concordia Sagittaria is in a region famous for wine making. Red wines like Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Merlot and white wines like Sauvignon, Tocai and produced here. So we have of course a lot of bottles, caps and so on all around ...
In this house they even used wine bottle caps to protect people from hurting themselves on these bars (probably put temporarily before makinh a fence!)

My daughter and I

Today something different! This drawing is made by my daughter (almost 5 ys). As you can see, it represents my daughter and I together!

Blue flag

The beach is also yours, please use me always! : this is what you find on garbage bins in Bibione . Garbage is collected in different bins for recycling.

Bibione, 25 km from Concordia, for many years up to now has been granted the Blue Flag by FEE (Foundation for Environmental Education). This rewards the effort in making the beach in Bibione clean and safe and user friendly. It's my favorite place near home also for this.

Wild orange

This bush is growing in our backyard. It a bush of Philadelphus inodorus also called gelsomino della Madonna (roughly Holy Mary's yasmine). It has a wonderful smell that mixed with the mild spring breeze is absolutely perfect!

Waiting for figs (to grow)

Figs are starting to grow on the fig tree in our backyard. They are still very small... but we are patiently waintg for them!

Have a nice Sunday

Our Sunday is going to be a very calm and quiet and cozy Sunday .. at home. This is how it looks like out of our window: I guess today we won't go to the seaside!

My favorite flower

Daisies are my favorite flowers! I had them also in my bridal bouquet, mixed with small red roses. Daisies are happy, they SMILE!

Squirrels crossing

This sign at the entrance of the woods in Bibione is brand new: attenzione attraversamento scoiattoli (attention, squirrels crossing). I didn't see it last year, but I did see squirrels on the grass!

Beach organization

In Bibione (seaside town at about 22 km from Concordia) the sandy beach is 8 km long. In all its length it is divided in areas that have a number and a symbol, to help people and especially children not to get lost. It's a clever system: my daughter doesn't read yet, but she always knows that we are in the DUCK AREA o in the MOUSE AREA or so on, so if she gets lost, she can go to the beach staff and ask them to bring her to her area (or to call via loudspeakers her parents!)

Flower pot

This is a peculiar flower pot my neughbor has since many many years. I should ask her were she got it.

European Elderberry

This is a Sambuco tree I have in my back yard. Wikipedia helped me out, in English it is called European Elderberry (you can read more
here). It has a wonderful smell and it remembers me my grandmother nonna Bice that used to make delicious biscuits with its flowers. Unfortunately I don't know the recipe, but I guess Internet will help me.

A street

Another example of pretty folwer beds in the middle of a street. It is pleasant to drive past the signs, don't you think?

To the seaside

Concordia is quite close to the coast; the Northern Adriatic Sea is averagely 20 km from us. Today I'm posting later than usual because the season to go to the seaside finally started: warm weather, sun, calm breeze!

(This picture is not where nice, it is shot throught the car's windshield with by new zoom lens. The places on the boards are all on the seaside!)

A pretty spot

A pretty spot: a very old house on the river, with fresh flowers.

Birillo

Some days ago I showed you one of my parents' cats Ulisse.

Here is the other cat, Birillo. He must have wild forebears because he still acts like a wild cat even thought he lives with people since 8 years! He always tries to steal meat from the kitchen, he climbes on trees, he gets very angry if you touch him the wrong way ...

(picture courtesy of my brother Stefano: you can see other pictures here)

Men in black

These men are sitting on the backside of the Cathedral, having a glass of wine while they are waiting to do their job: the are gravediggers waiting that the funeral that is going on in the church ends. Then they will go back, a bit more relaxed, to their unusual but useful job.

Brilliant red

I saw this beautiful tree in a garden. I don't know what it is, but its flowers were brilliant red, so beautiful!

Taraxacum officinale

Dandelions, my children's favourite flowers in this period: do you "blow" them too?

By the way, the way, the nice thing of publishing a blog in English, is that I must leanr new words ... today I discovered the name of these flowers, both in Latin and n English!

Higglytown Heroes

What do my children simply love? Higglytown Heroes!!! It's a really very nice cartoon: every episode tells about a job and explains to children - with happy songs and a nice story - what does that kind of worker do. It is made especially for children aged 2-5 and here it is transmitted on Playhouse Disney Channel that you get only by satellite.

Do you have them too?

Love, forever

Some years ago a movie called "Tre metri sopra al cielo" (roughly three meters above Heaven) had a great success among teenagers. It was a typical teenage movie about difficult love and broken promises of eternal love. In one scene, the two main characters put a padlock on a bridge in Rome, with their names on it, and throw the key in the Tevere.

This movie became so popular that on walls you can read graffiti saying 3MSC (the acronym of the title) and on many bridges, including this one in Portogruaro, you can find padlocks promising eternal love.

Portogruaro, again

Another view of Portogruaro: looking at the Cathedral from the backside. The bell tower is quite crooked, we all hope it will not fall!!!

Portogruaro

Portogruaro is the closest town to Concordia (about 3 km). It is a very pretty town with about 30,000 inhabitants. It has a lazy river flowing in the center of the town and many old beautiful houses with hidden gardens that run till the water.

May Theme Day: Numbers

An old fashioned gas meter outside of a pretty villa. Almost all houses still have these, not digital, but analogic counters. Every year, a man of the gas company passes house by house and reads how much you consumed: at that point the company makes a balance of your payments done in the year, because bills come every two months and are based on an estimation of what you usually consume.




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