The northern town of Vicenza was another nice surprise. Parma, Verona, Vicenza...we are learning to love these mid-sized agricultural, industrial Italian cities. They are all prosperous and have been for a long time. Their old towns are nicely preserved, the streets are clean, and the arts and restaurant scene is vibrant. We'd never heard of Vicenza before we moved to Italy, but Susan's trip gave us an opportunity to visit a city that we might have just passed through on our way to Venice. In addition to not knowing anything about Vicenza, we knew next to nothing about Andrea Palladio. Palladio was the focus of Susan's trip, which was specially arranged for her and a group of her travelling friends. 
Our day travelling with Susan and her group, who generously let us crash their tour, reminded us of the benefits of a good guide. We spent the day walking around Vicenza with a local expert learning about Palladio and High Renaissance architecture. Among many things, Palladio is famous for the villas that he designed for wealthy Venetians who had summer homes in Vicenza and the surrounding area. Like the great Renaissance artists, Palladio traveled to Rome to study what the Romans had learned from the Greeks, techniques that were lost during the middle ages. In particular, he learned how to make houses less expensive using brick and stucco where marble had previously been used. (Brick and concrete construction was for all practical purposes lost during the middle ages until Renaissance architects--most importantly Brunelleschi--started studying Roman construction, particularly the Pantheon.)
One of Palladio's most famous works is La Rotonda, which we visited with Susan's group. La Rotonda was a "pleasure palace" for a retired priest who wanted a place outside of Vicenza where he could throw the types of wild and lavish parties that were common among the Catholic elite before the Reformation. The hallmark features of Palladio's country villas are integration with the surroundings, a symmetrical plan, and the use of extended porticos and a dome. In the case of La Rotonda, which sits on the crest of a hill, the design is a symmetrical square capped by a dome and four porticos that extend on each side. You'll recognize La Rotonda, because it is the basis for many lavish homes in the United States, for example, Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello.
Palladio's last work, which was completed after he died, was the Teatro Olimpico. We really have never seen anything like this theater, which is a replica of a Roman theater housed inside a medieval building. The set uses a series of trompe-l'oeil panels to give great depth to the stage, which is only a few meters deep. Our visit to the Teatro was certainly a highlight of our visit, but the real point of the visit was to get to see Susan. 
We enjoyed lunch with her and in the evening an aperitivo at the beautiful Hotel Villa Michelangelo where she was staying, and then Sunday she and her group were off to explore more of Palladio's works, while Jim and I visited two nearby villages: Marostica, the site of a biannual chess game where humans and horses are the chess pieces, and Bassano del Grappa, center of grappa production. Grappa is a grape-based brandy that is made from the leftovers of the wine making process. Jim and I are not fans, but based on the crowds of people drinking grappa for breakfast the Sunday we visited Bassano, quite a few folks seem to like this spirit.More pictures of our weekend are on Facebook.
