Sketching in Italy, Fall 2016, Part 3

Let me begin with apology to my blog. I haven’t posted since October of 2017, and so much has happened in the last 15 months! We travelled to Viet Nam in late fall of 2017, and to  Piemonte and Lake Como in September 2018. We’ve spent two weeks of February every year in Key West, and will be leaving for this year’s Key West adventure in a week!

Back to September of 2016, we left San Marino, and drove through Urbino, to Ascoli Piceno; day trips around Abruzzo,  on to Sulmona, more day trips, and then on to the coast to Termoli and to our first stop in Puglia – Vieste.”’

 

Leaving Ascoli Piceno after a relaxed morning and lunch in the Cafe Meletti on the Piazza del Popolo, we set out on a long drive to Sulmona, our home base for our explorations in Abruzzo. Our first day began with a walk through the weekly market in Piazza Garibaldi. Very cool. Tom and I are huge fans of public markets. We left mid morning for adventures in Cascio, Castel del Monte, Villa Lago, Scanno, and Introdaqua.

One of the many friendly vendors at the Sulmona market

Ilio DiPaolo’s hometown – Introdacqua!

The man-made lake at Scanno

Villa Lago, L’Aquila

A road trip of beautiful views

View from Via del Municipo, Castel del Monte

The next leg of our trip will begin with Part 4 of Sketching in Italy, Fall 2016.

Sketching in Italy, Fall 2016

Our Trip began in Venice…..

This past September and October, 2016, Tom and I undertook a very intense Italian road trip.  It began gently enough with nine days in Venice and five in Bologna. From Bologna we rented a car and drove down the east coast of Italy with side trips inland, ending in Lecce in Puglia. We have debriefed and have promised each other that we will remember how tired we were before setting out again.  That being said, we saw wonderful places, and met some terrific people.  Having had better than a month to recover…..we are talking about another trip next November 2017….with driving!

Our nine days in Venice were perfect, including the must do gondola ride, tcvenice

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and a side trip to Burano and Murano. I loved drawing the colorful houses of Burano.fullsizerender3

We lived in a great neighborhood in San Polo in Venice, looking out on the Scuolo Grande di San Rocco and the Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.

Venice provided countless opportunities for sketching. Each time we stopped for coffee we tried to select a view for me.  Here are a few:

I’m going to save my sketches from Bologna, San Marino, Ascoli Piceno, Abbruzzo, and Puglia for future blog posts, promising not to take so long between posts in the future!

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