We got up early to beat the heat and made it onto an 8:12 train to Vicenza. Entering the city through the Roman arches:

So, the first order of business was to find coffee and a brioche. I could really get hooked on these brioches! That done, we walked on into town. It was market day so the views of some of the gorgeous, classical Palladian buildings were different but we still were able to appreciate them. Here’s Ken and Palladio:

and some detail on one of the buildings:

the tower across the piazza:

I’m into the old/new theme here:

Street scene in the “no cars allowed” area:

The Olympic Theater was next on our agenda. It was a real wow! Construction on the theater began in 1580!

They let you go inside and sit in the audience on the ancient wooden seats which go up steeply in front of the stage. The set is famous for the early use of perspective:

and at one point one of the guides/guards walked onto the stage and back into the set–you could see him going up and getting bigger and bigger in comparison to the set pieces. The first show they had there was Oedipus.
From there we strolled around the town and made our way back to the Piazza dei Signori and sat on some steps, listening to some really awful music–father and son on guitar and violin. And we did some serious people watching–it was a feast!
I needed a bit of ribbon and went into a shop there to get it; I asked for a lunch place suggestion and got Righetti, about a block away.
We decided to see the duomo before lunch and it was grand. It seemed very big compared to the smaller Venetian churches we’ve been going to and brighter with more white walls and a white ceiling with some brick decorations. The main alter was full of gold and gorgeous flowers.
On to lunch. What a fun place! It’s self service and we were a little lost but the locals really helped us out and the whole experience was so worth the 20euros for the meal. I had a fabulous grilled vegetable plate with a chunk of fresh ricotta in the center. Ken had fusilli with ragu bianco (meat sauce without tomatoes) I had 2 glasses of wine, Ken had a beer and a big roasted pear for dessert. Lots of really good food!
We walked back to the train station but the next train was expensive, so to save 20+ euros we sat outside in the park for a while and then got a shakerato in a bar across the street and killed an hour. We got home around 3:00
It got up to 90 in Venice today so by the time we got home we HAD to try out the air conditioning. Luckily this apartment stays pretty cool because the AC is super noisy but after about 20 minutes it cooled down to a very comfortable level.
Around 6 ish we decided to stroll back to where we were on the new path to the train station this morning; it was a very pretty little area which we didn’t take the time to appreciate.

We went into the Billa near there and got some stuff to make a quick chicken and salad supper and got some bread at a bakery near our place. Easy peasy especially with the half bottle of prosecco from the night before.