The local constabulatory giving directions to a tourist.
The police are quite evident here, even helping the school children cross the street at lunchtime near our apartment.
Strά is one of a cluster of towns located on the river Brent, the whole area being called Riveria del Brenta. The villas were built by the rich of Venice who traveled up the river via boat and built “summer homes” along the river. There are a number of villas, two of which we toured today. First are some pictures taken of the river (which to us looked more like a canal).
A bridge that acts as a lock and gate house with a lot of fishermen along the banks
You can take a boat ride from Strά to Venice, very expensive. This is a private “party boat” that was tied up along the commercial boats. These guys were having a good time!
One of the ornate doorways on a building in town.
Villa Pisani wasn’t hard to miss. It took up many city blocks. It is surrounded by a wall on nearly all four sides. To brake the wall into more eye-pleasing space, there are ornate gates every so far. These gates have roads leading back from them, making somewhat of a grid on the interior.
When the villa was built the main mode of transportation was by boat however, and this is the front of the villa where you would disembark.
The villa was originally built by a Venetian family around the 1600’s. Finances forced them to sell in the late 1700’s and the new owner became Napolean Bonaparte. He paid nearly 950000 francs, which I think even at that time sounds like a lot of money. He spent only one or two night there and gifted it to Josephine and her son. It short time it was the son who was the owner. Napolenic/French style “improvements” were made and it is this style that is reflected in the current furnishings. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take interior pictures, so I will attempt to describe.
The house is built in a square around an open courtyard. On the first floor are “statures” flanking a corridor that leads from front to back doors.
With both front and back doors open, it made a nice breeze blowing through. Plus it made for quite a vista, looking out on the “backyard”.
The rooms all have some type of frescoes painted on the ceiling and walls. Most of these are original to the house and depict Grecian or Roman mythical or allegorical scenes. As I said earlier, the furnishing are of the time of Napoleon, with coroneted canopies over the beds, the hangings made of silk.
One of the most memorable rooms was Napoleons’ bathroom. The “tub” was a sunken one, literally a small marble swimming pool, the bottom of which was reached by steps. It looked like if he was on the bottom the water would have surely been over his head. There was also a “potty chair” a rather “modern” element.
As you stood on the back porch, straight ahead was the reflecting pool and what appeared to be a rather large building. This building really fooled the eye because once you got there it was really quite narrow. This building surprisingly was the stable! It was beautifully decorated with stenciled walls. Pretty nice for a barn! There was a sign saying it was under reconstruction, but I am not sure what more needed to be done.
Rather than walking down the stone path to the far building, we opted to walk through the woods on paths winding through wild flowers and ivy, amongst the bird song. There were statues tucked back in here.
I came to this tall mound, under which was a door that you could see lead to a brick lined cellar beneath it. On top of the mound were these “heads” like they were coming out of the ground.
Kind of scary.
Here is a picture looking back at the main house.
Another statue. Note the pattern of stones in front of it.
One of my favorite building was the charming little garden house atop another grotto. It was reached by steps in the back. I through it would be lovely to sit here with a cup of tea, a good book, and look out over this magnificent estate.
A large area was devoted to growing citrus – all in pots. The pots were arranged in parterre pattern. You will also notice the Italians are not grass worshipers – mowing lest it get over one half inch high.
More statures.
At the belvedere, which is currently undergoing restoration, is the meeting place of four arbors, two covered with roses (which weren’t in bloom yet) and two with wisteria (which were – and beautiful)!
Here is a close-up of the stairs going up in the belvedere, which you couldn’t climb because of the restoration.
And now for my favorite – the maze. When I arrived at the gate it was closed. But the sign said it was due to reopen in about 15 minutes. I don’t know whether I have mentioned this before but Italy shuts down in the afternoons, for siesta. Store close, banks close, cafes close – everything for about two hours. Then they reopen, with some staying open til about 8PM, restaurants later. Well, evidently the “maze overseer” also gets a siesta too. So a little after 2:15, this man dressed in blue genes but wearing a smart navy blue sports jacket, very officially marches to the gate, unlocks it and enters the maze. There was a father and daughter waiting plus myself to get in. When the maze keeper didn’t reappear we entered. The father had evidently done this maze before, because he got to the middle with no problems. This maze was terrific – often offering three choices of paths. We met up with a young woman who spoke English and had a nice chat with her as we each tried to find our way. Her boyfriend had gone on ahead and was atop the tower in the middle of the maze looking down and laughing at our wanderings. The girl finally found her way while we were still blundering along. Soon I heard “Mr. Mr.”, look to the tower and it was she directing us to the middle. A good thing as we may still be there. No, no chance of that, because I think that is the maze keepers job – to help the lost and panicked. Here are pictures of the maze with the tower in the middle.
By the way, we had also met an older Italian lady searching her way in with a grandchild, and needing help from her daughter from atop the tower. We needed the daughters help to get back out too!
We had our late afternoon picnic and went to see another villa. This one was a private one, only open on certain Sundays of the season, so we took advantage of the opportunity. We were the only visitors, so had our own private tour. This one was located on the other side of the river, which bordered it on one side and access from the road. Although this was called a villa, Villa Benzi Smania, it was like a large private home by today’s standards. Our guide Paola, spoke some English, and started to tell us about the place. It was built in the 1700’s, changing hands in the 1800’s. The second owner lived in the neighboring house and keep 400 cats and numerous dogs in this villa. (I know what you’re thinking but no, it didn’t smell). After this group was done with it, the next owner needed to do a bit of restoration, although the original frescoes were pretty well intact. There were four of them, each picturing a parable from the Bible. Now as I said earlier, Paola spoke decent English, but telling all this information took a lot of work! I handed her my pocket dictionary, which she used a lot, and we played a game like twenty questions til we got through the tour. It was fun though, and Paola was a good sport. She is studying economics at university and hopes she will be able to get a job when she graduates.
When you entered the villa, you were in a reception area with seating areas to the left, right and ahead of you. There were separate rooms at the far ends, one a kitchen I assume, although we didn’t go there. The other was a library! In restoring the building they uncovered original stenciling on the open joists. Paola took us on a tour of the gardens, which was really a nice big backyard. It also had one of those grotto type structures, which we learned was filled with ice and used for food storage. This villa was really quite homey.
Front view of villa.
Original front of house when river was used for transportation.
Paola explained that the river was rerouted after a flood in the late 1800’s, gaining its owner more land. You can see the original property line where the white stone driveway ends.
Paola
A good day!
