Italy Journey during the golden week

I visited Verona, Venice, and Florence in Italy during recent Golden Week.

This year is the 30th anniversary of marriage with my wife and we took longer vacation than usual.
This was the second time to visit Italy in 10 years. In the previous visit, I missed so many places to visit and things to do. In stead of latest vist, I have studied more about Italy and have learned some Italian phrases.

The reason why I chose Verona, Venice and Florence is because these cities have their own specific characteristics with tourism spots and activities. Nevertheless, they have a lot of historical heritages to be appreciated.

I stayed at an apartment in Verona, close to the House of Juliette, as in the drama of "Romeo and Juliette" by Shakespeare.  The House is not so gorgeous as the apartment where I stayed, but it is big enough to make us understand that the family was rich.

 The center building is the apartment where I stayed in Verona for two nights.

This is the living room of the apartment where I stayed.
The compartment is 3 bedrooms altogether and I used one room with old wooden door.

My room has this wall paint on the celling.

This is the House of Juliette and a tiny balcony is in the left.
Romeo might have climbed up the fence in the left.






It looks 3venues with 3 floors building.  It is made of block, neither of marbles nor limestones.  That means the family was not super rich.

This is the castle of Vecchio and is famous with the wall pictures

The next city is Venice and I will post it on the next post. (to be continued)

Children's Day

May 5th is Children's day, used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd, to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.

According to WikiPedia, a boy's festival seems to have begun 800 years ago to wish the family will be succeeded by sons.

(see http://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/端午/)

Many families decorate samurai armors as below; dedicating special rice cakes. There are two types: one is called "Kashiwamochi", covered with oak grass, and sweet mushed black beans- inside; the other is called "Chimaki", covered with bamboo grass.

For kids, it seems more fun to have snack time to eat "Kashiwamochi" and "Chimaki", especially for me.

The first photo is the full set of the decoration, and it is almost 2m height.

The photo below is the real samurai armors.

The left photo is a tiny decoration in my house.
This is located on a piano and just 30 cm height.