Abbazia di Piona

Continuing the theme that it was sunny on Wednesday, after taking lots of shots of the hotel I decided to walk to this church we'd seen about 3/4 of a mile past our hotel.  Here is the sign that lead me on my route (and I took a picture so I could remember the name of the place).

Entrance to the Abbazia, though the building itself is probably half an mile past this "entrance".

From my limited Italian, it appeared they had the names of donors on the stone plaque in between the two columns.

 Okay so half a mile later I get to these guys who mark the true entrance to the Abbazia.  I brought Derrick back with me in the evening and he claimed these statues were following him with their eyes, but I thought they seemed pretty friendly.

 Once I finally got past all the entraces I saw that the Abbazia was not a church but it was an acutal Abbey with a monastery and priests/monks living there and everything!  No I did not get any pictures of the priests, I thought that might be a little intrusive.

Abbazia di Piona (Abbey of Piona, it took us far too long to figure out that Piona was a place)

The chapel is the main building straight ahead, and then the monastery curved around to the right.  The people are German tourists.  There are A LOT of Germans in Olgiasca, too bad "nein spreche deutsch". 

View from the Abbazia.  Probably the best mountain shot I've got so far.

Prayer Garden

Looking back at the chapel from the prayer garden.

I didn't get any pictures of the inside of the chapel, because the priests were doing their chants and I didn't think that would be a good time to interrupt = )

The doors to the chapel seem to be made of copper, and had scenes engraved on them.

The priests closed the doors to do even more chanting, but it let me get a good picture of both sides of the chapel doors.

Monastery

I thought these lamps looked like they were straight out of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. With a little snow on the trees it would be perfect.  Now where I can get one of those half man, half goat creatures....

Someone had made a little shrine of their own about halfway between the Abbazia and the first entrance gates.  They had nice benches here as well, so I came back and read here on Thursday.

I need to go back to the Abbazia, because the priests make their own wine!  We are definitely not in Texas anymore.  They also make lots of things from honey (honey, soap, cough drops, lotions), so I figured I'd have to go back to get some souvenirs. Maybe when I go back I can sneak some pictures of the inside of the chapel for you guys.

In Italy the priests have a vineyard next to the prayer garden =)