Equestrian Jumping

Here is a poorly taken picture of said flyer. 

Sometime in mid July, we saw a flyer announcing a horse jumping competition in a town near us, and as we like to attend local events and I had never seen a live horse show like this, we made an afternoon trip to see what it was like. 

After managing to find free parking, we wandered through the stables so we could see all the horses entered. (I love horses! Beautiful, powerful creatures.) Afterward we headed to the arena to see the competition.
 

On our way to the arena we passed through a small fair of sorts, a part of the event. There were canopies selling t-shirts, stuffed animal horses, and event memorabilia. There were also a few food booths and of course, a gelato booth!

I was very impressed with some of the jumps these horse and rider duos could make

Some of the horses, like this one, had caps that made their ears a certain color, usually matching their rider.
That was something neat I had never seen before. 

I didn't realize how much detail went into each of the jumps. Each one seemed to have it's own theme and color scheme, which made the course more interesting to look at. 

Adam seemed to enjoy the event and was quietly observing the action from our close sideline seat. 

Just some cool ruins in the scenery above the arena. Italy is so fun!

This kid is a great sport and always happy with the adventures we take him on. 

Adam also enjoyed some barefoot time in the grass. Chubby baby feets!

We stayed until the end of the competition and left as they were taking group pictures of the winners so we could beat the traffic crowd. Nearly every weekend there seems to be an event or festival nearby, and it's been very fun to experience the various aspects and diversity of the local Italian culture. I'll try to keep the posts up!

Back to Nove! - the town of ceramics and Ceramiche Bressan

When I say “Back to Nove”, you may be thinking, ‘oh, she’s going back for the second time’. False. This post is about my fifth excursion to Nove, and yes I already have my 6^th trip scheduled, and yes that means I have averaged one trip per month of my stay in Italy thus far… Now that we have my gross love of Nove cleared up, we shall proceed.

            On one of the military spouse facebook pages I am a part of, someone mentioned a ceramic factory I had not yet been to, so I made note of it and figured that we would take a stop there and see what it had to offer.

            I plugged in the location on my iphone and off we went. This place wasn’t actually in the town of Nove, but right next to it in a smaller town called Pianezze. I was beginning to doubt the accuracy of its location, as we were driving through what seemed to be a residential area, and when it crept up on me I nearly passed it by as it was a rather discreet location.

Their main sign was engulfed in an overgrown bush and we nearly missed it!

This place was unlike the others I had been to, as it appeared to be all factory/workshop, as compared to others, which were part factory and part store where they would sell some of their products. My mother and I were searching for the “store” part, but never came across it. When we inquired about it, a worker there said ‘oh yes’, and led us upstairs. The room was fairly large, and very well organized with the sets on the glass shelves. We found it odd that there was only one of everything, I then picked up a piece and found that it left a dust ring around it’s former location. These pieces hadn’t been moved in a long time. After observing a table and chairs at the head of the room, we quickly realized the room we were in, was a show room. A place where larger companies would go to see what they can do and then bargain over prices and quantities. Oops, we were no such company. 

One of the many displays to look through. 

The meeting table at the head of the room

We made it clear that we were no such company, simply individuals interested in ceramics. They were fine with that and then let us tour the facility. We then got to see the step-by-step process of how these world famous ceramics are made!

Here are the ladies making the plates and bowls by hand. They would then set the stacks of freshly made bowls into large carts to dry. 

Adam on one of his many Italian field trips! Lucky kid :) 

Here, three of the workers take the dried ceramics and paint them

It was so fun to watch them work! Here a woman paints berries at a rapid pace. She was pro. And they were very pleased to be photographed. I guess giving personal tours isn't very common and they enjoyed showing off their work! 

This man's focus were the lemon ceramics

After painting the ceramics, they dry once again as they wait to be glazed and fired.  

Here is a rack of ceramics fresh from their massive oven. This was about as close as I dared get for a picture as the heat waves coming off of it were intense! They would wheel the racks outdoors to cool before they were packed and shipped. 

We enjoyed getting to have a personal tour of the ceramic shop and seeing the step-by-step process of how the world famous hand made ceramics are crafted. It amazes me that they can mass-produce so many ceramics and they are all made by HAND! It was crazy to watch them work. It was a very educational experience and at the end, we got to purchase some ceramics! They don’t normally do individual sales so they rather made up some prices on the items I picked and because I’ve been to Nove so many times, I know I was getting them at a steal!

As we were leaving, one of the men handed me their card and told me to tell my American friends about them, and I promised I would. So here is a post dedicated to them. If you ever happen to know of a company looking to purchase ceramics hand crafted in Italy, forward them here! As they are just outside of and not in the center hub bub of Nove, they don’t get as much attention and business, however their work is just as good as any other factory I’ve been to, and cheaper too! And never before have the people been so kind as to give us a personal tour. What an experience!

A blurry picture I took of their card :)