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Day 4. Another day and another train. The trip up to Feltre is mostly on a single track, climbing up into the pre Alps. Then suddenly we come to a stop somewhere in the forest. The announcement is quite to the point and one of the words that I pick up sounds like Fermata ( stop) and colazione (breakfast). Surely not. The driver has gone for breakfast? Not altogether surprising but then the announcement in English tells us that we have stopped due to a "railway incident" and we will be here for 10 mins. Visions of signal failure and freight train hurtling into our train but no sooner had we started to breathe easy again knowing the driver was probably still on the train, than we were off. A very quick 10 mins. Anyway, why Feltre you ask, well it's more of Sarah's footsteps. When she was here with Swinburne she stayed with a family who live in Miane, halfway between Conegliano and Feltre. The son of that family was married in the church of San Rocco & San Sabastiano in Feltre and she was invited to attend, so here we are.
It is Saturday and the town is quiet, but I'm not sure if that's because it's Saturday or if this is how it normally is, but either way it makes for a very pleasant day to see the town. Feltre is also known as Borgo Verticale ( vertical town) something that we soon understood to be appropriate.
After making the mandatory climb to the castle on top of the highest hill, we sat in the shade of a canopy of trees, listened to the birds and admired the Dolomites.
Back down into town and we found a bar that was open and had a coffee and panini for lunch. Then up rocked "have a chat", a young guy who had relatives in Aust, USA, Switzerland and just about everywhere else. We heard about the Battle of Lepanto in 1579 when together with the Spanish, the Venetians knocked out the Ottamans. 300 galleys with 60 cannons each, the story was longer than the battle. We heard how Venetians had the first mass production line in the world, and could produce 1 galley a day. And so it went, but he was a great guy to listen to, fiercely patriotic, spoke good English because it was necessary in his day job, refused to learn French because they don't speak Italian even though they can, they just don't want to. He didn't want to learn German because they are like Austrians and they conquered the Venice Republic in 1719 and still haven't been forgiven. A bit like the French and the English really. English was OK because he has family in Aus & USA.
Anyway it was an entertaining and informative hour or so out of the afternoon sun. Time for a gelato and back on the train to Treviso.
We finished the night in a fantastic Osteria call Med. Located in the heart of the Latin Quarter under an umbrella with tables out in the Piazza and full of local families replete with kids, dogs & seemingly long lost friends, it was the perfect way to end the day.
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