Sunday, December 29-The Antique Roadshow hit Piazzola sul Brenta
by Marc Gunn

Next Stop Antique Roadshow

Okay, it wasn't the REAL antique roadshow, but Piazzola was holding an antique market, and I wanted to go. Piazzola is the place where I took the photo for A Celtic Renaissance Wedding.

I love going to antique markets with my mom. She is such a genius when it comes to finding great deals in the markets. She told me about how she was like her mom only instead of buying just jewelry, she could buy antiques, wait for them to gain value and sell at a profit...

Okay, that's the IDEA, but my mom grows a wee bit too attached to her furniture and whatnots.

I remember also coming to this market many years ago and almost buying some musical instrument from a Moroccan. It was really kinda cool. He started selling it at like $50, but by the time we left, it went down to $20. My brother later told me he could've gotten it down to $10. Dang! I wish!

Yes, I, like my Da, collect musical instruments...sorta.

We stopped at a neat little Gelataria to hit the restrooms and while mom waited, I grabbed a cappucio (it's really not that small after all), some water, and a table while I checked out the beautiful Italian ladies working behind the bar. OH!

Well mom had one real goal for this cold morning. There was a dealer in Roman artifacts from Libya she had befriended. He had little odds and ends of Roman coins and pieces of vases, and well, lots of little do dads. So we stopped had some wonderful hot tea there and admired some of the jewelry they were making too.

Finalmente it was about time to get back home to greet some Tatiana, Tiziano, and Lidia who were coming over to hear Tiziano and me play music together.

But on the way out, I caught a couple great shots of a man busking in the markets playing an accordian. Beautiful man and music. Got a sweet MPEG of it with my digital camera too.

Click here to watch the MPEG of the Italian busker.

Italian Jam Session

Around 5pm, the group arrived. Tatiana's Tiziano told me he was a songwriter a few days earlier. So we arranged to jam together this day.

He arrived with a bunch of books and started playing. He likes attention. So I let him play his songs and occasionally strummed in. It started with some of his original songs, and then Lidia wanted to hear some good Italian traditional songs. So we played some Fabrizio and Angelo Branduardi.

Interestingly, I finally got a translation for one of my favorite songs, "La Pulce D'Acqua". I always loved it because it's such an upbeat happy song, yet I thought it was about the Black Death. This made my delight all the more...delightful.

Well on translating it, it wasn't but the lyrics just as wonderful.

We played together until we were starving and mom's Tiziano had arrived. And we went back to that restaurant that I wasn't overly impressed with their pizza.

Upstairs I ordered Gnocchi al Gorgonzola e Noci and veal with a truffle sauce. OH YEAH!

I first leared about truffles from Peter Mayle in his Provence books where he goes into detail about how they find the truffles and how valuable they really are. I took my time eating, cutting the meat into very small slices and savored every moment. The food was incredible! yeahhhh...

Finally, we went back home to prepare for the big day tomorrow--VENICE!

Christmas in Italy | Christmas in Italy Air Travel to Frankfurt | Train Travel to Italy | Christmas Eve in Italy | Christmas Day in Italy | La Festa di San Stefano | Vicenza Italy | Padua Italy and Italian Countryside | Trip to Venice Rained Out | Camisano Open Air Market | Veneto Antique Market | Links | Venice Italy, My Home Away From Home |

Copyright 2003 Marc Gunn
Hosting by Houston Web Hosting Discount