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Portogruaro Town Hall
The Piazza and Town Hall at Portogruaro This morning while Pierina attended to appointments, Lindsay and I walked around the historic part of Portogruaro. This is a town well worth visiting in terms of beauty, Roman and medieval history. The buildings are varied and interesting, especially the Town Hall shown in the picture. The Lemane River runs through the old town and adds to the character with it's boat moorings behind houses as you might expect in Venice. As Pordenone had an abundance of classy clothing shops, Portogruaro has coffee and bread shops. After meeting with Pierina, she took us to the Palaeotological Museum which is a private collection gifted to the town. It is fantastic and I must return for a long perusal. The fossils range over most of the Fossil Record, but would leave anything we have in New Zealand for dead. Many huge ammonites, nautilus, brachiopods, plants, bones, crabs, and fishes. If the visit to Bolca is better when we go, then it will be a surprise.
Pierina then drove us out to the family farm to meet her mother, Guilia and Giovanni, Guilia's brother. Guilia was happy to meet us and she is doing extremely well for a 98 year old. For those wondering
The Leders and Family
Me, Guilia Leder (mother), Giovanni Leder (her brother), Pierina Santaliano (daughter), Diego Santaliano (Pierina's son). Me, a cousin through Gt Uncle Percy about the family connection, Guilia was my Great Uncle Percy's fiancee. She had a baby to him and she is Pierina who we are staying with. Piero is Pierina's husband and Diego is their son. Giovanni, Guilia's brother, suffered a stroke 3 years ago which has left him without mobility or speech. However, his eyes say a lot. Fortunately, there is a live in couple who look after Guilia and Giovanni, allowing them to spend their lives in the house they've always called home.
Uncle Percy was a NZ soldier who escaped as a prisoner of war and was taken in by the Partisans operating in the area. The family was the Leder Family who Percy lived with, worked for and was hidden by them against the Germans for 18 months. It was a brave and courageous thing for them to do because the consequences of being caught were dire. During the visit I was able to stand in the area of the house where Percy was hidden in the loft. The access was not visible from below. The rest of the story is long and not appropriate to this blog so that will suffice, but it is the reason we are here - to meet an arm of the family that we didn't know anything about until recently. We will return to see them later in our visit.
The farm property is a vineyard which has been replanted out in a new variety of grapes and leased to a neighbour. The old farmhouse is now being completely renovated into 4 apartments and it will be be interesting to see it when finished. It is now well underway.
Later in the day Pierina drove us to the seaside town of Caorle. It is a fishing and tourist town but worth a visit. The beach is long and very popular with holidaying Europeans. Between the sandy beach and the river mouth is a promenade not unlike that in New Plymouth, but wider and paved in rock with huge ammonite fossils (sigh- what a waste!). We walked the fishing harbour, the town and the seaside walkway then headed back to Portogruaro stopping at Concordia to see if the Roman Museum was open. It wasn't but it's worth going back to see.
So, a very full day of activity.
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