After a hectic month working mostly 12 - 14 hr days in a hot and sweaty porcelain tableware factory here in northern Italy I finally got to get a free day last Sunday and headed just 35 miles south of where I'm living between Verona and Lake Garda to the small town of Mantua, Mantova as its called locally, which is in the district of Lombardy
Mantova is famous for having some of the best examples of medieval architecture in Italy. The town is surrounded by 3 large lakes and a river which probably accounts for the local delicacy being pike in green sauce (luccio in salsa). I've only eaten pike once in the UK and thought it to have a muddy taste and I remember being told by a coal miner fisherman friend that after catching pike you should take them home and let them swim around in fresh water in the bathtub for a day or two to let the water clean out their system. That sounded too dangerous to me! Pike are pretty darn agressive at the best of time and have got really nasty teeth. Imagine deciding to take a casual bath without remembering the pike are in there! That could easily end up turning a manly voice into a high pitched falsetto! No thanks to that idea!
As it happens I didn't get to taste the pike on this trip but I'm sure to be going to this town later on in the year and have it on my 'must try' list!
The day turned out to somewhat overcast and a bit misty when I arrived at 7.00 am to miss the tourists who throng the place later on and guess which idiot left his UV filter at home after taking it off the lens the previous night to clean it? As a result my photos were a bit iffy and I've had to tweak them a little in Photoshop. It's a good job I'm just an amateur photographer!
Enjoy the tour!
Mantua Italy
Note the file size is about 3.5 mb so folks on a slow connection would be better to download it first and then run it
Mantova is famous for having some of the best examples of medieval architecture in Italy. The town is surrounded by 3 large lakes and a river which probably accounts for the local delicacy being pike in green sauce (luccio in salsa). I've only eaten pike once in the UK and thought it to have a muddy taste and I remember being told by a coal miner fisherman friend that after catching pike you should take them home and let them swim around in fresh water in the bathtub for a day or two to let the water clean out their system. That sounded too dangerous to me! Pike are pretty darn agressive at the best of time and have got really nasty teeth. Imagine deciding to take a casual bath without remembering the pike are in there! That could easily end up turning a manly voice into a high pitched falsetto! No thanks to that idea!
As it happens I didn't get to taste the pike on this trip but I'm sure to be going to this town later on in the year and have it on my 'must try' list!
The day turned out to somewhat overcast and a bit misty when I arrived at 7.00 am to miss the tourists who throng the place later on and guess which idiot left his UV filter at home after taking it off the lens the previous night to clean it? As a result my photos were a bit iffy and I've had to tweak them a little in Photoshop. It's a good job I'm just an amateur photographer!
Enjoy the tour!
Mantua Italy
Note the file size is about 3.5 mb so folks on a slow connection would be better to download it first and then run it
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