Travelling to Verona and Strà, 1st and 2nd June  2002

We had ourselves quite a trip over the last two days! Dagmar was very nervous already some days before, and today she told me why: We would travel to meet friends of her in Verona - by bus. And it seems she is rather afraid of this means of transport, it has something to do with her fears and panic and similar stuff, but she wanted to try out if the therapy she is following helps something. Well, it seems so, and she said she was SOOOO grateful to Ricky for having it mentioned!

   
And here we are at our first stop.. visiting a wonderful old villa at a placed called Strà, near Venice, with a garden.. I can tell you, I'd have liked to race through it long and wide, but in the end I contented myself with a little walk and some climbing, since it was very, very hot.

   
Still exploring the castle and there sure were strange figures standing around... We were told that in this villa Napoleon had for some time his quarters and we even saw the bed he slept in. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures from that :(

 
Inside the castle there was also an exhibition of a painter Dagmar and her friends know, so we went to have a look at his pictures and sculptures. Not quite my taste but rather voluptuous girls all around! In the picture at the right I'm posing with Dagmar :)

 
Next stop, dinner! We sure were hungry after so much culture.. a little appetizer of olives and then Paella, a really yummy spanish dish, which Dagmar and I contended each other rather fiercely!

   
And then we had a really emotioning moment when Dagmar told the other people who were eating with us about why I was here with her, and about why Ricky couldn't be with us too. So we all lit a lot of candles in the garden and sent healing, loving thoughts towards Ricky!!

     
At the end of the evening we got a wine tasting.. I had lots of fun racing around the barrels and even if I didn't drink any wine, just the fumes must have made me a bit drowsy, because I really don't remember how I got into that flower hanger there ;-)

 
The next morning, I woke up in this wonderful italian landhouse and after admiring the sights, I sunned myself on the windowsill for a while.

 
When the wine-soaked company finally woke up, we had a nice brunch based on lots of fresh fruit, homemade jam, yoghurt, bread and other stuff which I've forgotten.

   
Before leaving I had a final look around the inside of the house full of strange pictures and other stuff the use of which was not really clear to me.

     
And here we are, on the road towards Milano again, this time at the train station of Verona, with a very tired Rocco who doesn't even realize I'm climbing all over him :) In the end I get back into the little bag where Dagmar has carried me all weekend and which is really comfortable, allowing me to see every detail of what is happening around me. Whew, now I'm tired, this sure has been an eventful couple of days!!