The trip through Venice and Codroipo and off to the relatives

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We were up early this morning to pack and tidy up the apartment. Though we were expecting to leave around 10, the woman who manages the apartment, Teresa, showed up about twenty after nine and so we sort of scrambled in the end (unknowingly leaving behind Joshua's red sketchbook of ideas).

We wheeled our bags the short distance to the bus stop, only to find the first bus was packed. We managed to get everything aboard the next bus and got to the station about 15 minutes before the first train that we were aiming for. We quickly bought tickets and rushed to the train headed for Venice, our first stop en route to the relatives in Flaibano.

As seems to often be the case, there was not really enough space for the baggage and it was quite an operation to find places for everything. This train was another Eurostar and was quite fast travelling on elevated tracks, curving along rivers and plunging through the sides of mountains.

By 11:30 we had reached the city of Bologna - a sort of high tech region in Italy. By 12:40 we were passing through Padua. The terrain here was not flatter with longer stretches of fields. Shortly after this we reached Venice - or at least the station in the outskirts of Venice. We now had an hours wait before our connecting train to Codroipo. In the interim, we went to the ticket office to find out about getting a train to Grenoble in France in a few weeks. Once again, this train would involve the expensive Eurostars so we may try to find another way to get there. We really don't want to be without INTERNET for the next few weeks, so we visited a kiosk advertising wireless INTERNET. Unfortunately, the only way we could get this would be to sign a 2 year contract so that was out of the question.

The train to Codroipo was one of the slightly slower (but far less expensive) inter city trains. We quickly found ourselves at our destination and after a short wait, Evy's uncle Giovanin pulled up along with his wife Pia and their son Luigi and his wife, Giuditta. They had quite the entourage with a very fancy new minivan and a pickup truck. I think they had imagined even more luggage that what we brought.

The conversation from now on was entirely in Friulano - a dialect spoken only in this region of Italy. Some words were familiar sounding, but I had to constantly ask Evy what was being discussed in order to follow the conversation.

Our first stop was the farm house where both families live. Here we met Luigi and Giuditta's children: Pablo (18), Cristina (16), Lucia (15) and little Francesco (6). The house is right next to the dairy farm that the family owns. Just past the main house is an new house that Luigi and Giuditta are building. We all went to the large kitchen and had coffee. Evy and the family caught up on news in Friulano. Our kids and theirs both seemed quite shy and the language barrier didn't make it easier, but everyone seemed happy enough.

As it was threatening rain, they drove us up the road to the house that we would be staying in order to get settled in before coming back for dinner. The house was huge - bigger than our house in Toronto and by far the largest place we have stayed in the last few months. It belongs to Giuditta (from her parents) but has not yet been sold and so its furnished but empty. It was wonderfully clean and perfectly set up for us. After the small apartment in Florence, we feel almost dwarfed by the amount of space. It has a small vineyard next to it and is set in farm fields, across from another working farm.

After we had settled into the house, Giovanin came back with the car and picked us up for dinner. Before the meal, we took a tour of the farm. It seems to be quite a large dairy operation with a huge number of cows and equipment.

It was great to have a full home style meal after all of our own one pot meals of the last few weeks and the family made us all feel very much at home. After dinner, we returned, well fed, to the house where we are staying.

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