Wearing our Civi’s

 Day 29: Rest Day in Cividale di Friuli 

Hours walked: none

Kilometres walked: none

Jesuses seen: oh so many (the Duomo here is remarkable)

Quote of the day: “As puppetry represents the human world by means of marionettes, puppets, shadow puppets or whatever else, it releases the huge need for escape and for poetry that we everybody feel” - Maria Signorelli

Today, instead of playing Hiker, we played Lazy Tourists. We dawdled in the morning, eating breakfast multiple times, reading books and colouring pictures. Jakob and I went for coffee and petits fours in the square. And then we inadvertently discovered that our next accommodation was incorrectly booked: turns out that there are two Bregs in Slovenia and they are 250km apart! Thankfully we had time to sort through the issue, and by late morning had a reservation at the Breg that was walking distance away. 

We wandered around the old town of Cividale which has endeared itself to all of us; the duomo is large and imposing as duomos should be. The monastery has the oldest choir stall we’d ever seen, and also the most varnished choir stall we’d ever seen (lots of choirs), and its refectory roof was painted like the dickens. Our walk through the monastery reminded us that we really like the Benedictine tradition of having someone read out loud during meals. 

The puppet museum was as flamboyant as a puppet museum should be: dozens upon dozens of d’Artagnans, Pinocchios and bandleaders. We saw elaborate sets, garish costumes, videos of rhumbaing puppets. The girls put on some small puppet shows of their own in an abandoned room full of puppets. We hope marionettes are not a dying art form although we suspect they are. 

Zadie is very much enjoying the attention lavished upon her by Italians. She smiles at them gaily as they pinch her cheeks and cry, “che bella!” The puppet show owner gave her a very nice doll, which made us all feel both happy and awkward, knowing this was not an object we could hike with. Zadie very maturely told me later, “Don’t worry Mama, I’ll leave it in the house.”

The kids got to play in a playground and we ate masses of fresh pasta and gnocchi for dinner followed by another round of gelato for dessert - and, all in all, it was a lovely day in Cividale.