Mantua

Our next stop was Mantua, primarily to meet friends/fellow travelers Kathy and Rick Howe, but also to see the Ducal Palace there and the works of Mantegna. We found Kathy and Rick at the appointed camperstop, by the Lake Inferioure. A heat-wave was underway, temps in the mid-90s, with Alaska-style mosquitoes swarming outside. So we stayed inside, testing the limits of our AC, and tasting a variety of wines and cheeses. Next morning Kathy and Vicki and I did the ducal palace while Rick dealt (successfully) with their Italian internet provider.

Much of the distance from Bolzano south toward Mantua is a great valley--
a gorge I would call it, with high walls on either side, but a mile or more wide 
in most places--very heavily planted in grapes, very big-time Italian wine 
country; anyhow, above is one of several castles along the route, this one 
perched high atop a huge pinnacle

Wine in capsules; Bardolino, Valpolicella, Lambrusco...

Not the great stuff, but we had to stop anyway at a place called appropriately Dulce, 
to pick up a few souvenirs

In the ducal palace, Pisanello's unfinished Arthurian frescoes

Ditto

Mantegna's portrait of the Gonzaga family; note obligatory dwarf

Remains of an intriguing Mantegna allegory

The trompe l'oeil oculus is one of the earliest, and certainly the first to show the 
putti and others looking down from the heavens

Next we strolled Mantua's weekly market, in its three connected central piazzas, 
certainly one of the largest we have seen in Italy

Rick and Kathy and a very, very rare shot: side-by-side American campers in Europe!

And us