we are pilgrims of a journey...we are travelers on a road...

It is sping break...  ...'travel week'
  
so we get in our little punto and travel...east..to Trieste

past the farms and the vineyards in the flatlands at the base of snow capped mountains

 

passing fields of trees lined up one after another

in perfect rows

arriving in a place that though looking so familiar

is anything but 

there are mountains like west virginia

but this is the sea side

the coast of the Adriatic

I have had 'breakfast included' at most of the hotels I have ever stayed in 

but I have never had breakfast and my coffee by the sea

in a room I would love to have a wedding reception in

  

the marina from the balcony of our hotel room

 

  

we drive into the city center

  

 

and looking down along the pier of the piazza

the only piazza in Italy with one side open to a seaport

in the clearest of water

swim jelly fish

something I have never seen

I have felt their sting

but never observed them pink against the clearness of blue sea

  

                   

 

at the end of our city tour we sit on the Piazza Unita d'italia

watching people and sipping a ciaccolata calda 

the next morning we walk to a castle...Castello Miramare

    

 

 

  

 

   

 

then taking our little rental car...we leave the country!?!?
leaving Italy and entering...Slovenia and Croatia
just to get our passports stamped?!?

 

            
we climb city hills to visit churches
Santa Maria Maggiore
San Giusto...Saint Justus

   

 

  

I've seen many images of Mary

but seeing these paintings of Mother Mary nursing baby Jesus

actually caused me to weep...so very precious...

I don't ever recall seeing baby Jesus nursing?!?!

and on the opposite wall...

a never before image of Christ in the tomb?!?!

and even further up
Monte Grisa
modern interpretations of age old images

 of 

 

an image of the Resurrected Christ 

 

 

in this strange new world

an ancient world full of history 

so much of it unbeknownst to me

 

seeing things that seem familiar, but aren't 

....flowers and mountains and churches and the sea...

seeing things I've never seen before

...jelly fish and a mother nursing the son of God...

in this...my world...which I should know

it all seems strangely so unfamiliar 

as if all the things I've ever known...I know longer know

and the things I've learned

 I will never ever know again