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TREVISO
During my two week stay I decided to take a short day trip and visit the small town of
Treviso. It was recommended by someone on the Slow Travel Message
Board when I asked for advice. When the day came to do my daytrip, I actually
found it hard to tear myself away from Venice.
I researched the train schedules to Treviso
before I left and printed them out to take with me. I took the Vaporetto to the
Train station and purchased my ticket on the same day. It was fairly easy to do. I
found the Binario and the train was already there so I boarded it. Before I found a seat, I asked a fellow passenger
if this was the train to Treviso. I was fairly confident about my skills in finding the right train and binario, but just wanted to double
check to make sure I was right. And I was!
I almost felt sad leaving Venice even if it was for
only a little while. It’s amazing to me at how fast I became so attached. Well, I'm here on the the train now and so I sit back and enjoy the brief 30 minute
ride to Treviso. The
train was not very crowded and the ride was quite pleasant.
Upon
my arrival, I use my Venice
technique and just follow the crowd of people exiting the train station up to what looks like a main street
hopefully heading towards somewhere nice. I walk up and see a very nice canal
and wall just across from the station. It was actually pretty nice so I stop to take a few photos. This place does seem to look like a comfortable town. I follow along these shops and find myself at this statue, then further up I find
a nice church and looked around a bit. As I was crossing one of the streets,
a couple of noisy cars speed by me and I actually felt annoyed at having to yield to the cars when crossing. In Venice, the Pedestrian is “King”
and it almost felt wrong to have to give the right of way to these cars. After visiting this church (all of
which I failed to catch the name of) I decide to find a nice little snack shop and grab something to eat. I spend
about 30-40 minutes enjoying my little snack I started thinking that I should have prepared a list of
"must sees" for Treviso because now I couldn't decide where else to go. After a few minutes I decide
to catch the train back to Venice where I'll have a nice dinner and just go on another exploration walk. Treviso
was a nice town and maybe someday I shall return to see more of the things that I missed seeing. Not doing
enough research on this beautiful town is a lesson that I will hopefully learn from and a mistake not to be repeated
on future trips. But for now, I'm back in beautiful Venice!
FERRARA
I first became interested in visiting the town of Ferrara when I viewed
a photo that was selected as "Photo of the Week" by Slow Traveler Moderator, Marta. Ferrara is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is surrounded by these 15th and 16th Century ancient
renaissance walls. The photos made the town look so charming and inviting that I began to research the possibility
of visiting it as a quick day trip from Venice. mc
After careful review of my options and some much needed advice from my
fellow Slow Travelers, I decided to visit Ferrara on my return trip back to Venice after my overnight day trip to see the
Mosaics of Ravenna. It was an excellent plan and it worked out perfectly. My stop in Ferrara was brief but my
intention was not to see everything here but to get a lttle flavor of the town in hopes of somedy returning for a much more
deserving longer visit.
I left Ravenna on the second earliest train (about 7:30 am) and arrived
in Ferrara about an hour later. Since I wanted to utilize the same train ticket to get back to Venice, I decided to take a
taxi from the train station to the main center square near the Castello Estense. A must see on my list. The
taxi ride was fairly reasonable at about 6 Euros. I could've taken the time to catch the bus but felt that I needed
to spend my time visiting the sites.
The Castello Estense
is one of Ferrara's main attractions and is located in the main
center. It is a large brick castle like building surrounded by four towers and a moat around it. I paid the small
entrance fee and guided myself around the interior. Inside, there are these beautiful ceiling paintings and also these
prison cells which was quite a contrast.
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