Lastly is a statue of Dante in Verona and Abby with some angels in the square. Next week Peggy, Sam and I go to the southern coast of Portugal for a soccer tournament. It is supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny. I'll update with photos. Abby is staying behind with friends, so I hope someone takes the pictures.





The woman in blue in the middle is Paola Pezzo, a local from Verona, who led us on the ride. It turns out in her prime she was the first Olympic gold medalist in mountain biking and was world champion several years. She is so famous in these parts that a local trail is named after her.



Forgot the lake and Mountain biking shots in Verona.







For the Fall Academic Travel week the Soccer team went to Verona and trained at a very nice soccer facility. While there, we went mountain biking and toured the city and nearby Lake Garda. Peggy and I definitely want to go back to this lake region for some more biking. Verona has one of the few complete amphitheaters in Italy. It used to have a third tier, but an earthquake took it down in the 1200's. It was built around 50 AD. I think that was the Bauhaus period, with a hint of Frank Lloyd Wright. Also in this group, are shots of Juliet's balcony. Shakespeare's story has made this quite a tourist spot, despite being all fiction. Abby poses with Juliet's statue.


Abby had a class trip in which they hiked up on of our local mountains. Here are her shots from that day.






Recently we took the train up to Zurich. (2.5 hrs) The town was very comfortable, more cosmopolitan than our region. Also more English was spoken in the German part of Switzerland. We went to a few movies in English, and visited a fine art museum. The cast iron gate was at the museum and was done by Rodin, entitled the Gates of Hell. Abby has become our photo taker.














Here is Abby's Halloween costume. The locals are not into it, but the school tries to keep the tradition alive.