Trento

30 June

A quiet day wandering around the town of Trento.  There is a long history of habitation here, but most of the old buildings visible in town date from the 12th-16th centuries.

The town was the venue for the Council of Trent in the 18th century (in response to Luther and the protestant movement)  which set the course of the Roman Catholic church for the next 400 years.

Trento is known as the painted city - there are still frescoes on many of the buildings - dating back to the 15th century - still visible and very lovely. This was a quiet day being a Monday - we admired the large castle, the Duomo and went into the cathedral. After  short time the mid day bells peeled out , people left and we moved quietly to some seats and listened to a short service in Latin. A huge sense of peace was present and to hear the Latin spoken was like music in my ears - in nomine; pater et filius et spiritus sanctum - lovely and for me evoked my years of   happily puddling around in the Latin language. So - Latin is still alive and well in some places in the world -my second encounter hearing it spoken - Zadar and now Trento.

Since we were here last in 2009 they have built a new block in the gardens.In the afternoon we got access to the hotels "spa" area in this complex where we have been relaxing in their super indoor swimming pool with views to the mighty Dolomites , in their 'relaxing room' with cream covered single warmed water beds where we lazed and snoozed  and outside we sun bathed on  deck chairs toasting in the blazing sun! Bliss - Stephen and I had the pool and relaxing room to our selves - only one other couple sun worshiping. Peaceful and beautiful.We decided not to partake of the sauna, turkish bath, massage or depilatory services.The heat in the 2 former was like a furnace blast and we need to hang on to all our 'bits' at our age - who knows what might disappear with all that 'depilatoring ' going on.

We were taken by a lovely young woman from reception across he luscious lawn to the venue - who provided us with a classically embossed woven carry bag complete with toweling dressing gown, towel and a pair of jandals wrapped on plastic for our use - black for men and white for women. They were ours to use for the day - just for us to return them to our room to be removed by the maid in due course!Of course we enjoyed them!

insert picture -pool 

Dinner at the hotel restaurant - a real experience with beautiful decor and perfect silver service.
The food was wonderful - no point in describing what we ate as we lack the vocabulary to do it.
However - as Stephen ordered and drank his coffee and cognac we watched as, discretely behind the bar the young waiter,  took  glasses steaming out of the dish washer and he put them onto a machine that moved at some speed to dry and polish them on a machine with 4 vertical bottle brush spindles. We were fascinated to watch the process.

Through out the evening we and our fellow guests were effortlessly and seamlessly waited on -as we observed it seemed like a well rehearsed scenario as the waiter  served and supported each other to provide the quality service we received.  Gillian was taken by a beautifully polished samovar on a side table.