Sunday in Palmanova and Undine

Sometimes when you travel you start out for one place but end up somewhere completely different. Yesterday we headed out for Aquilea but when we got off the train we discovered that on Sundays there are only two buses a day that go there and we'd missed one of them. So along with another fellow from Australia who'd made the same mistake, we grabbed a bus to Palmanova, about half an hour north.

Later in the day we took another bus up to Udine, the capital city. Both these spots were wonderful to visit on a Sunday.

Palmanova was built as a defensive city in the 1600s by the Venetians. It's laid out in the form of a perfect nine-point star with a large six sided piazza in the middle.  (If you want to see the layout, check it out on google maps.)

There are three doubled-walled gates entering the city. Here you can see one with its apparatus

for lowering the drawbridge.

When we walked into the central piazza it was obvious something was going on. The whole place was full of young people in period costumes with flags and drums. Sundays are special in Italy. All kinds of family things take place. In Palmanova it eas a demonstration of 16 th century flag and drm performances by teenagers from different towns.

Then we took the bus to Udine (OOH-Dee-Nay), the capital of the Venezia-Friuli region.  It's a beautiful small city, where on Sunday all kinds of things were happening.

Below, some Indian boys were playing cricket in front of the ancient church.

In one piazza there were lots of people gathering for some kind of church event, and the African sales guys were hawking books of some kind.

This is a sheep head from the frieze above one of the civic buildings. Don't you just love the way his eye stares right at you?

On Sunday in Udine, there was lots going on for families and kids. Dads and moms and kids were everywhere and they had set up a biking course for the little ones right in the centre of town.

Here's a final look at this lovely city. At the top of these stairs was a castle that is now an elegant museum with art through the centuries as well as some archeological finds.

We had a great day and came home tired and ready for our last day at Aquilea.