Poffabro

The Italians take Christmas very seriously, which means that this time of year is absolutely spectacular. We are so blessed to be here - it's hard to believe that we will only have one Christmas left here at Aviano.

Today, Chris left work a couple of hours early (a miracle), and we drove about a half-hour into the mountain to a heart-stoppingly beautiful village called Poffabro. This little village is built onto a hillside, which means that the buildings are perched incredibly on a slope, and the narrow streets wind up and down with breathtaking views of the Pre-Alps. It is clear that the buildings are centuries old, as the homes are built right on top of one another complete with space for the family barn. The buildings are also constructed with gorgeous stonework. Many of the houses in our village were built in the same manner.

We went to Poffabro to take in a semi-famous tradition in this area - the nativity scenes. Although, for us, Christmas and New Year's have come and gone, Advent is still ongoing. This quaint little village, each year, stuffs a nativity scene in every nook and cranny in town. There are some that are absolutely tiny all the way up to life-sized. They are made from just about everything - we even saw one made completely from pasta (normale) and one from wine jugs. There were the very simple to the incredibly ornate with lights, running water, and music.

It was just beautiful. If you are here in Italy, this event goes on until January 13. You should definitely check it out.

What would be really great would be if I had a picture to post, but my camera, naturally, was dead. I'm posting a picture of the village that I found online. We ended our walk with some hot chocolate/mulled wine from the town bar, and decided to leave when we saw that the fountain was icing over.