Day 3_Vicenza

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I was very impressed with Vicenza.  It's basically a city filled with Palladio's works.  It's also a very wealthy city.  The weather wasn't as good, but still not bad.  It sprinkled a little bit, but it was right when we were getting ready to get on the bus anyway.  Our breakfast in the hotel was in a room overlooking the city.  After breakfast, we walked downtown to the square to see the basilica (public, non-religious building) and some Palladian palaces. 

Then we went to the Teatr Olympico which blew me away.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  I would love to see a play there.  You could just sit in there and look around for the longest time.  Two cool things about it were: they made 3 streets in perspective going back from the main stage area to create a permanent backdrop.  Also, the ceiling was painted as a sky because Palladio wanted to create a theater after Roman antiquity, which were open to the sky.

Nice view of the city from outside our hotel

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Next, we visited the Villa Rotunda.  It was in the city, but on a big plot of land.  It was a lot of fun.  We got to walk up to it and around it, but we couldn't go inside because they only do that on Wednesdays.  We took some pictures on the main porch.  It was cool too because in studio my first year we designed a visitor's center for the Villa Rotunda on the site, so it was neat to see it in person after studying it and building a project on the site.  It's much more impressive in person.  I can't believe it was someone's summer home.  From the Villa Rotunda, we hopped on the bus and headed for Verona.

The drive to Verona was gorgeous.  It was exactly what I would imagine an Italian countryside to look like...lots of hills, tons of grapevine fields, and many beautiful houses.