Exploring the area

We took a little drive today and explored the area a little.  We stayed within 20 minutes of the base, and it was a beautiful day for a drive.  (Although really any day here seems beautiful, even if it’s raining, it’s still pretty.)

This picture was taken at Castello Di Aviano (Castle of Aviano).  It was up on this big hill, and the view was gorgeous.  All the buildings you see off in the distance is the base.

There seem to be lots of tree lined streets here in Italy.

These buildings are everywhere.  Very old, very close to the road, with arched doorways.  All the windows have shutters on them and I would say 90% of the windowsills in Italy have flowers on them.  I absolutely love it.

More of the streets with the mountains in the distance.  Notice the biker in this picture.  Bikers are EVERYWHERE here.  Old men and women ride around on their rickets old bikes with baskets in the front and back.  And all the women wear skirts.  It’s interesting.  We also have the road bikers around here – the ones in the fancy bikers get-ups that look like their training for Tour de France.  I personally think they’re nuts to bike along these roads (usually without helmets).  The roads are narrow enough, and the drivers are crazy, let alone putting bikers on either side. Even the tiniest Italian town has a church and a bell tower and most of the time it’s in the town’s center. We really wanted to go to Trieste and Venice this weekend, but none of us are feeling 100% and we didn’t want to drag Abbie out when she doesn’t feel well.  Luckily we have 2+ years to explore.  Everyone says to not go to Venice anyway because every time you have someone visit you they want to go to Venice.  So we’ll probably go once to learn our way around and then just go back with visitors.  We here Trieste is pretty too, so hopefully sometime soon we’ll make it down there also.