A Trip to Italy is not complete unless you take a trip to the market. We have been here a week and a half and have visited 3 different street markets AND have gone to I think maybe 5 different Esselauga's (a local grocery store chain). On Saturday we left Gio napping with the kids and took a quick trip to the market up the street. It is like a T. The clothing and shoe vendors are all lined up down the street under big pop up tents and their cars stationed behind them. The food vendors are lined up down the center of the T.
I find street markets fascinating. There are so many different foods there: cheese Vendors selling 100s of cheese varieties, meat vendors selling chicken and veal and rabbit and pig, tons of fruit & vegetable vendors with fresh produce ( you wouldn't believe the strawberries Rod and I bought last week). But what is also fun to see are the variety of people pushing their way through the crowded stalls.
When you come to a big city like Milan you have to dress warm and carry your shopping bags. I thought this woman was sweet in her fur hat and collar
This is one big stick of bolognia that Oscar Meyer would be proud of.
The meat trucks serve raw meat on one side and a small cooked section on the end with roasted chicken and fried vegetables to snack on.
Olives, capers, and other brined items and salted dried fish
Cheese stand (notice the wheels-- these trucks can fold up and drive away)
Check out the cool cauliflower. It looks like an alien life form.
This guy selling fis was also eating a sandwhich with his other hand. (kind of grossed me out a little after I just completed my food handlers safety permit at work a few weeks ago)
Rachael and Rod buying strawberries, artichokes (in season now 10 for 3 e),
This is the stack of boxes beginning to form from the food vendors as they get ready to pack up for the day.
Rod commented on how all of the young women are hot but what happens when they get older? The we saw this lady all decked out in her fur, sunglasses, leggings and high heeled boots for her trip to the market. Very elegant!
In the end we rushed through the market, picked up a couple of things and I found a pair of sparkely ink Lilly & Kelli shoes for Lottie for 15e. I would have payed $25 at Nordstrom Rack for the same pair. So it was a good trip. Sometimes you dont find anything.
Rachael & Gio's car
Little Isaac excited to see more of Italia.
We follow Rick Steve's travel advice and seek out suggested hotels. This is Hotel Diana close to the center. The rooms are very small but very comfortable and they come with Italian continetal breakfast of juices, coffee (hot chocolate for us) and pastries along with meat & cheese plate.
The Italian contryside along the road
Driving along the narrow roads of Ravenna. If you are a pedestrian you have to watch closely. This town is big for locas to bicycle around. We loved how crooked this tower is.
We walked around the crowded streets, found an amazing restraunt-- One of the best meals we had experienced.
As we walked around the old town after dinner we found this lit up building down a side street that was open. And let me tell you -- it was amazing. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics-- Art made from small pieces of glass as big as your fingernail that are attached with a cement mixture like tiles. The colors and the way the light hits it is amazing! And many of the pieces in Ravenna were created in the 1st Century-- Only a few years after Christ's death. There are depictions of what these peope believed in and many of the expressions follow my beliefs.
This is in the ceiling of the small building. Inside was a baptisrty. And this art was on the ceiling. The 12 apostles surrounding a depiciton of Christ's baptisim by John the Baptist with Gid the Father to his right and the Holy Ghost symbolised by the dove. We saw many other buildings with amazing mosaic depicitons in the day that we spent in Ravenna and then we drove on to Rimini.
