Oct 22st, Milan Duomo

10/22   Tuesday

            It’s a wet, grey day, good for a rainy walk to the Duomo, or Cathedral Santa Maria Nascente. Milan is a busy and attractive city. As we walk along the street, we pass lots of designer shops, gourmet delis, and cafes. The streets are bustling, but it feels right-sized, not oversized.

            The Duomo, however, is one of the biggest cathedrals we’ve seen. It has a massive footprint on the plaza, a huge block of a building crowned with spires, like an enormous birthday cake, and a golden statue of Santa Maria topping it all. The plaza is framed by porticos and the impressive Galleria of Vittorio Emmanuel II, whose monument and palace fill the piazza opposite the cathedral. The Cathedral is undergoing a total renovation, with most of the exterior showing the results with its bright pastel marble façade. Today the sky is filled with dramatic clouds , but we can imagine how spectacular the Duomo would look in the sunshine. Parts are still draped in construction, inside and out. We go through a brief security check to enter, although there is no fee, except to take photos. Bob pays his 2 Euros for a blue wristband to use his camera. Even with half the interior draped in coverings, the space is awesome. It is difficult to express the grandeur of the arcade of stained glass windows ten stories high. The gothic vaulted arches of the ceiling are even higher.

            Next to the Cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel II (not a shy man, this Vittorio), considered to be one of the world’s the oldest shopping mall. It predates the Galleria Umberto in Naples by about 25 years. It’s similar to the Naples Galleria, with its high glass ceilings and ornate buildings and luxury shops and restaurants. The mall is hugely popular with tourists and locals alike, although how anyone can shop here is beyond me. There are several Prada shops, one showcasing a one-of-a-kind calf-length skirt of crocodile skin for a mere 60,000 Euros. There’s also a creepy tradition of putting your heel on the genitals of a mosaic bull that decorates the floor, and spinning three times around for luck. It’s caused a small dent in the tiles. There’s a constant circle of people making videos of someone spinning, or waiting their turn. Icky. And, although the Galleria went through an expensive lawsuit to keep out McDonalds, we sadly note that there is a McDonald’s opening soon, to join the Burger King that’s already in place.

 1 Video Included

Milan Duomo

Oct 21st, Verona to Milan

10/21   Monday

            Travel to Milan is easy. The train terminal in Milan is one of the wonders of Europe, or maybe anywhere. It’s Grand Central, only Grander. Parts were modeled after Union Station in D.C. It’s gigantic, with impossibly high barrel ceilings in a massive portico. The style isn’t uniformly anything in particular, except impressive.

            We make a couple of connections, including onto a local bus going the wrong way for a while, and arrive at our new neighborhood in Milan. Our host, Sabrina, meets us shortly, and takes us up the five stories no elevator to our apartment. It’s very clean, ten foot ceilings, with a sort of antique-minimalist décor. Very nice. The predominant feature is a poster size photo, a black and white Scavullo-style shot, of a younger Sabrina in a dancer’s top, with her hair perfectly and weightlessly blowing around her face, which is staring at you with an enigmatic expression. Adjectives come to mind: haughty, stern, direct, regal. Scary.

 

Oct 20th, Verona Easy Sunday

10/20   Sunday

            It’s a nice fall day, not sunny, but hazy and still warm. All the families are out today, strollers and little dogs everywhere. We walk into the town and stop at the book fair again. We listen to an author interview, actually not an interview, but a young man talking non-stop for about fifteen minutes, then pausing to read a few pages from his novel. It’s all in Italian, so we really don’t understand him, but I think the book is a historical or fantasy romance. There were allusions to horsemen and falcons, I think.

            We enjoy a cappuccino, watching the people in the market square, then stroll over the old bridge to the neighborhood across the river. People are out having Sunday dinner in the trattorias and bistros. It starts to rain a little as we’re walking towards home. We manage to get inside just before we hear thunder, and it rains harder.

            We can have an easy evening, gathering up our stuff and packing. We’ll have a last dinner on our balcony, and hope the clouds let the moon shine through a little.

Oct 19th, Verona Book Fair

10/19   Saturday

            There’s a big Book Fair going on in the city, with tents set up for author interviews, books for sale, a courtyard with regional food and wine, music, medieval paraders, activities all around the courtyards. It’s too bad that we don’t know Italian, because some of the programming looks very interesting. In the book sale tent, there seem to be so many lovely small publishers represented, I want to buy something just because they’re available.

            We succumb at an early hour to an unusual lack of discipline and sit in the courtyard with some regional wine and a plate of prosciutto and cheeses, watching the crowd and just enjoying the vibe.

            We spend the rest of the day just walking about, until it’s time for dinner. We’ve scoped out a nice, traditional trattoria. As we’ve been reading menus here and there, we see an awful lot of horsemeat listed. Not only horse, but also donkey meat. I make a mental note to read the menu carefully tonight. No ragù di carne di cavallo, thank you.

            We have our dinner out at La Taverna di Via Stella, despite the Trip Advisor reviews all over the windows. It is a really authentic and relaxing restaurant, with attentive service and great food. We have Risotto con Amarone, a risotto made with red wine. I’ve never heard of it, but this is a popular dish in Northern Italy, with the wine changing according to the specialty of the region. It’s just really really delicious.

 1 Video Included

 Verona Book Fair

Oct 18th, Verona Tomb of Juliet

10/18   Friday

            We have some more sites to check off our list today, starting with the Maffeiano Lapidary Museum. This is the collection of a wealthy Veronese aristocrat, who assembled an obsessive collection of memorial stones, that is, he was essentially a grave robber. Most are from the 5th Century BC, and provide a great deal of information about the dearly departed. One very important set of panels running nine feet in length covered in small print, is a will, dispersing the properties of a wealthy Greek woman. The translation actually begins along the lines of “Being of sound mind…” We also see some tombstones that were placed on the graves of horses, as it was a custom to bury valued horses in cemeteries with headstones.

            Moving from the ancient dead to the wonders of technology, we walk to the Museum of Radio. This is going to be fun for Bob. It’s in some kind of technical school. We can’t tell if it’s a high school or more of a community college, but it seems to be the type of place where one learns mechanical drawing and electrical design. The museum, we find, is in the basement, and is undergoing some renovation, meaning that a lot of stuff is piled up in the stairwell. It was established by a Mr. Alberto Chiantera, who had a great passion for radios and spent many years collecting them. There are also photos and other memorabilia related to Marconi. The place looks rather like Mr. Chiantera’s basement, with shelves full of all kinds of radios, vacuum tubes, record players, antennae, radio toys and all sorts of manuals and magazines. There are a few frightening dioramas with dollar store manikins filling the roles of a soldier in the field, or a family gathered around the console. What did we expect, the Smithsonian? It’s fun enough for sure.

            Then, we head over a block or so to complete our bogus Juliette adventure with a visit to “Juliette’s Tomb.” This is in a former monastery, taken for the state by Napoleon, and with the financial fortuity to be in the possession of a suitable tomb in a crypt that everyone can pretend is the site of Juliette’s last repose.

            As we walk back to our neighborhood, we pass a great monumental gateway, so we go closer to see what it is. It’s a huge cemetery! The entryway is an enormous covered portico, suggesting an Egyptian Necropolis, with memorial sculptures that resemble a small bronze tree holding photos of the deceased, and shelves for cremated remains, and tombs in the floor. Beyond that is a gravel-paved cemetery full of marble platforms, headstones and crypts. It looks very crowded. People are dying to get in.

            As we continue on to our apartment, we realize that we’re walking through a University neighborhood, with student hangouts and cafes, and young people rushing to the bus or train station to get away for the weekend.

            We’re nearly home when we find a little grocery where we can get something for dinner. It’s just about 10x10, but has everything you’d need. All the produce and deli foods are carefully placed, everything looks very nice and well presented. I see something in the deli case that looks interesting, and ask the young woman tending the place what it is. Gnocchi, homemade, she makes it herself every day. So we have to have some of that. I pick up a jar of sauce, and once again, we get schooled. Oh NO, she says, for gnocchi, you need gorgonzola. She pulls out a block of beautiful cheese, ready to measure out what we need. I can hear Bob’s arteries squeaking shut from across the room, so I decline the cheese, and she says, OK, not gorgonzola, then this, and gives me a small  can of ragu sauce. And so we leave, properly provisioned for our dinner.

 1 Video Included

Verona Tomb of Juliet

Oct 17th, Verona Saints Fermo and Zeno

10/17   Thursday

            Mores sites on our Verona Card for today. First stop, St. Fermo’s Basilica. This is in a decidedly upscale neighborhood not far from the Coliseum. The church is really beautiful, with a red and white stripe pattern in the marble walls. The design is Roman, not Gothic, and it’s rare to see a church kept in its original form despite later renovations. The walls and arches are decorated with soft frescos that date from the 14^th and 15^th centuries. The ceiling is the wooded beam “ship’s keel” style. Interestingly, there’s an art exhibition in the center of the nave, with works from book illustrators from around the world, responding to a theme of life and flight. The information is all in Italian, though, so that’s all the interpretation I can give. The art is beautiful and creative.

            Below the nave, there is a second, earlier church, more intimate, with dozens of elegant columns supporting the roman arch ceiling. The remains of the original 12^th century frescos are still visible.

            After our visit, we stop for a cappuccino in a little neighborhood café. There are no tourists here, just working people stopping for a plate of homemade spaghetti. It’s a real mom and pop joint, with mom making the sauce in a closet-sized kitchen, while her daughter whips up the espressos. We sit, browse the newspaper, listen to the Italian chatter, and wish we could have a big plate of spaghetti too.

            Instead, we amble on to our next site, the Basilica of St. Zeno, described as one of the best preserved examples of Romanesque architecture in Northern Italy. It’s beautiful. Saint Zeno is the patron of Verona, and the church holds his crypt. He’s often referred to as The Fisherman, casting for souls to bring into the church. There’s a really funny statue of him in his fancy bishop’s garb, holding a fishing pole with a nice little perch on the line, with a totally satisfied smile on his face.

            We continue on to the Miniscalchi-Erizzo Museum, the former palace of an aristocratic family of Verona. The museum is listed as “reduced fee” on our Verona Card, and we’re charged a 5 Euro entry. The price is actually worthwhile to us for the opportunity to wander through the mansion unescorted, completely by ourselves. It’s just fun. The rooms hold a certain idiosyncratic collection of medieval armor, small B.C. bronze figure sculptures and assorted royal furnishings. I especially like the table service, with each plate decorated with a beautifully natural painting of a different type of bird. I would like that for myself. Perhaps IKEA will pick up the design.

 1 Video Included

Verona Saints Fermo and Zeno

Oct 16th, Verona Roman Colosseum

10/16   Wednesday

            The big attraction in Verona is the Roman Coliseum. It’s almost fully intact, although it was never totally restored after a 12^th Century earthquake knocked all the marble off the walls. It’s used today for performances, and the opera series is world famous. The photos of the full stadium and stage sets are awesome. It’s interesting to visit, but odd as well, because it’s not unlike going into any city arena when there’s no show, only with stone seating. There’s no line waiting to go in, and the remnants of past events are all over the place: empty ice-cream coolers, beverage stands, lighting set-ups, assorted litter of Pepsi cups and wrappers. The only historical information to be had is from a coin-operated video with a hand-held speaker, which took our Euro and didn’t have any audio. We learned enough from our visits to Rome and Pula to appreciate the place. Of the three, we found the best experience at Pula, where you can walk on the actual arena floor.

            We also come across some of the most annoying buskers in Verona. They make a sort of puppety character with the persons’ face sticking out. One, for example, is a box with a pet carrier on it, with the guy’s head sticking out in spotted dog make-up, working puppet dog-paws. Another guy has a onesie-wrapped baby puppet in a stroller, with his own head on the baby, working puppet baby-hands. This baby guy uses a radio-controlled car with a money cup on it to harass viewers for coin. The defining feature is a horrible high-pitched squeaky voice coming from some kind of device, making nonsense conversation “Dur de dur de dur dur de DURRRR.” Fortunately, they have limited mobility, so we can avoid them.

            The Castlevecchio is the Medieval fortress of the Scaligeri dynasty of Verona. Most of the castle grounds are open to the public, and lead to a fortified bridge across the river that’s a very popular stroll. We also go into the castle museum to see the collections and the interior of the fort. There is an extensive collection of 12^th century sculpture, frescos, and religious art, all quite beautiful work. A popular figure is a statue of a price on horseback with the family crest on his helmet: The prince’s nickname was “Cangrande” or “Big Dog” as the tour leaders love to say, and his helmet has a big dog face on it. Not unlike the busker puppet guy, now that I think of it.

1 Video Included

 Verona Roman Colosseum