A Glimpse of Italy ...... - Part 4

Saturday had come far too soon. Our last full day. We had been thinking about going to Venice, but weather forecast wasn't too good there, so we decided to head to Palmanova instead. It is a very special little town, it's layout is like a star. Here is a pic I nicked from Google.

So after breakfast we drove there. It is about a 50 minute drive.

We had soon found a parking spot and started exploring.

This church was so beautiful from the outside and even more so from the inside.

As you can see, it started to drizzle a bit so we decided to take a break and have some coffee.

When we left it had started to rain harder and the wind had picked up quite a bit, so we decided to come back here another time to explore more, but it was time to head back. (Especially since I had decided to wear the one autumn jacket that was NOT waterproof!)

On the way back we stopped at two more grocery stores, really big ones as we were looking for certain items that we had not found yet and we also picked up some prosciutto and parma ham and several cheeses as well as some rolls to have a nice cosy lunch in our flat.

Needless to say that we needed to rest after lunch.

And while we were "at home" Tom got a text from a friend asking if we had felt an earthquake - but no, we hadn't. Little did we know that we would see some curious sights later that day.

But first things first.

On our way back the wind had picked up even more and while we were resting it was houling. We had sat out on the veranda for a short while, but it was way too windy and you could even feel the wind carrying the sand.

We had no idea that this would turn into the big storm that hit the Med this year that caused quite the devastation and maybe you have seen some of the pics of Venice not being IN the water, but UNDER water.

In the afternoon we ventured out again, you really had to fight the wind and we were both happy we had hoods, as you needed to protect yourself. It was then that we discovered this ......

We were later told that after the earthquake there had been quite the waves and pulled out most of the sand. We were stunned.

And when we returned to the town it was deserted ........

Long hot showers helped get rid of the sand and then we packed up our stuff, loaded the car with everything we didn't need for the night and had a nice cold cuts dinner. We didn't even bother with a restaurant.

Overnight the storm picked up a lot and we were up and listening to the howling wind ever so often.

Driving home was pretty uneventful if you take the wind and heavy rain out of the equation. We have never seen so many beautiful waterfalls along the way and rivers that usually are just a tiny little creek were now streams.

Getting back home took us a lot longer than usual, but we made it.