Riviera dell Brenta part 3

The boat had an open top to sit on and I had a lovely Italian couple sit beside me - they are the two in the centre of the photo below. I was the only english speaker on the tour which was good, I was expecting to be surrounded by Americans, but everyone was Italian, German or French. The couple didn't speak English so we chatted in Italian which was really good practice. They told me I speak very good Italian which was reassuring - every Italian who I have had a decent conversation with has said that so I'm starting to feel a bit more confident!

This is Villa Foscari, the first one along the river and designed by Palladio (I don't really know what that means but apparently it's important!).

After this Villa we stopped for lunch - it turned out that most of the tour was having lunch so I felt better, but then they sat us at individual tables according to the groups we booked in, which meant of course that I was at a table by myself! They gave me a whole bottle of wine (which no, I didn't finish) and brought out the first dish - a prawn cocktail salad. Then I got a seafood marinara risotto and thought, ok this must be the main. But then I got a bowl of salmon spaghetti, so I was convinced that was definitely the end, but no there was more! They then brought out a plate with fish and two massive prawns! After that there was of course desert, which was a simple fruit salad and vanilla gelato, phew. So it was an absolutely massive lunch - I could hardly move - but the quality wasn't very good which was such a shame.

Then it was time to hop back onto the boat and head to Villa 2. I didn't include photos here because it wasn't as nice as the others and it would simply make this novella longer then it already is!

This is a pheasant (I assume) that I found in a cage at the back of the 2nd villa.
It was so sad - there were heaps of them there - but they were so beautiful.

random sculpture at Villa no. 2

The post that was used to mark the boundary between Padua
and Venice, as they were always warring about land.