Portogruaro NE Italy

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Day one in Italy begins after the long journey from NZ. Since this has occured several times before there is no need to write about it. It's the usual - sit and endure, and you duly arrive where you want to be. In this case it was Venice where Diego was there to meet us. I should mention here that we are travelling with my sister Lynette and her husband, Kevin.

We travelled back to Diego's property at Annone Veneto where Pierina also met us with the exception of Piero who is staying away as he is sick. After much chatting we settled in early since we'd had very little sleep. A 12 hour sleep (well, it seemed like it) soon had us ready to face some exploring.

So, we'll start with Day 2. Every Thursay, Portogruaro has a morning market making it a good time to see what is on display and for sale. Mostly it was clothes and fabrics but with the occasional food stall as well. It's also an opportunity to explore the Old Town area which is based on the Roman history around the 1st Century BC and AD. The town is on the old Roman road running from Northern Italy and south to Rome. Near the town is another Roman historic centre called Concordia Saggitarius which I'll mention later but the history of Portogruaro is to this town. First we visited the museum showing the artifacts and history of Concordia. This is a must-view museum which has artifacts of pillars, sarcophagus's, coins, glassware, pottery, and many other objects. The Director showed us a couple of video's of how bronze objects from scratch. They carried out the experiment as a group of locals using the knowledge they had on how it was originally done. Fascinating to say the least.

We then did a town walk through narrow alleyways, along cobbled streets, over bridges, and under covered arched verandah's. There was definite evidence that the town had been the port for the shipment of goods from Corcordia, down the river to the sea and Venice. I think it's a lovely town, full of fascinating buildings and lovely historic streets.

After a superb lunch, we drove to Concordia where Periena showed us the historical artifacts looking down from street level to the structures many metres below. It's amazing what has been covered up in just 2000 years. Many of the articfacts from this area are now in the museum in Portogruaro. (If you're interested, check out the area on the internet).

For dinner we drove some distance to a craft beer brewery. It also has a restaurant and vineyard in a rustic setting. The food was typical of the area - salami, proscuitto, potato and chees dishes helped along by bread, wine or beer.

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Photos

The Lemene River in Portogruaro
This river was the port for sending produce from the area down to the sea and then onto Venice

Arches over the pavement
The covered arches opened to warehouse doors

One of the Lemene bridges
This is one of the five bridges over the Lemene River in Portogruaro. The dam feeds a water wheel presumably for milling in the past

Market day in Portogruaro
Thursdays are a busy day in Portogruaro.