Bologna Evening

Bologna is a wonderful city for food, and the chef who prepared our big dinner there was superb. A good portion of the city built additions to older homes in order to make rooms that could be rented to university students. The result in certain neighborhoods was the portico look seen here.

Taste of Bologna

A wonderful lunch in Bologna established that its signature pasta sauce . . Bolognese , , would become a staple in our kitchen. We have had it twice since we returned from Eataly. I mean, Italy!

Ferrarra and Bologna

Along the road to Bologna we stopped in Ferrarra, where the town square is host to the sculpture of the Mad Monk. In Bologna, Pope St. Gregory overlooks the piazza; it was he that orchestrated the modern calendar back in George Washington's time. The calendar we use today is called the Gregorian Calendar.

SUNDAY POSTER

Arrivederci Venezia

Our exciting two days in Venice ended when we left Burano, where we see two residents chatting at the front door of the small home. Later, back on Lido Island at the hotel, the moon lit up the many cabanas lining the beach.

Leaning Tower

In prior posts we noticed that there are more Pietas than the one I expected to see; on Burano I saw a Leaning Tower that I did not expect to see. The entire island is as visually exciting and colorful as these images suggest.

Murano and Burano

A boat ride on the Grand Canal took us to Murano, where the famed glass company had a wonderful demonstration for us, a seen in the horse formed almost by magic in front of our eyes. Then the island of Burano, wonderfully colorful in the July sun, where we had what our tour guide called a Lunchy Dinner. Bellisimo!

Palazzo

Right near San Marco is the impressive Palazzo of the Doge. From the door decoration to the courtyard, a beautiful scene in every direction.

San Marco

The center of Venice is St. Mark's Square in English, Piazza San Marco in Italian, and is every bit as exciting and beautiful as advertised.

Night and Day

A huge moon hung over the bay outside our hotel room, the tops of the beach cabanas visible at the bottom of the image. The next morning, I captured a blazing sunrise forcing its way through the trees. When I heard a favorite old Rolf Harris lyric, this poster practically wrote itself. Harris was known in the 60s as being a creative Australian singer, most famous for Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport. Several of the new friends we made on this tour were Aussies, and a part of the genesis of the poster is to honor those fine new friends. G'day, Mates!

Grand Canal

After another look up a side canal, we headed into the Grand Canal and toward the Lido Island, the location of our hotel. On the way, we saw this larger-than-life modern sculptor's message on the futility of war, with the soldier's dwarfed by the impervious giant controlling hand.

From the Canal

From the canal, one sees so many styles and colors of building that it is hard to take it all in. Among them, in the upper image, we see the Rialto Bridge, the supposed scene of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, a popular play by Shakespeare.

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City of Canals

From Verona we went directly to Venice, where our gondolas and gondoliere were waiting for us. A picturesque view of the city from the canals was a highlight of the trip.

Verona

No one thinks that Shakespeare visited Italy, of course, but several plays were set in the faraway magical land. Romeo and Juliet lived in Verona, and the playwright did not see anything like the real town in his mind, but the fact is that the beautiful place straddling the Adige River draws tons of tourists because of the star-crossed lovers. The river has several wires strung across it near the bridge we walked on, and literally hundreds of loving couples have pledged their love by hanging a marked lock onto a wire.

The balcony ascribed to the Capulet family had tourists on it when I was there, but shooting between tourists gave me an empty balcony. Near the balcony, one level down, the statue seen here of Juliet is the subject of many photographs. I imagined what she would look like, up there, and this is the result!

Casa Borromeo

We visited Lake Magiorre after leaving Milan, and saw the Borromeo home on a small beautiful island. An obviously wealthy family, one son left the family money behind to dedicate his life to the Catholic Church. St. Charles Borromeo has a suburb of Chicago named for him today, and my Church is located in St. Charles. The tabletop in the upper image is a mosaic with the tiniest pieces I have ever seen. The lower image is of the homes on the hillside across a stretch of the lake. The entire area of the lake is one beautiful place.

More Than One Pieta

Inside the Sforza Castle, seen above, was another work of Michelangelo, and one that surprised me. Of course we saw The Pieta in Rome; it is one of the most important sculptures in history. I had no idea, though, that Michelangelo returned more than once to the subject of The Pieta, which had been sculpted when the artist was a young man. Here we see a later work, executed more than half a century later. We see characters more rough-hewn and stark. He was working on this one at the time of his death at 89,

Opposites of Art

Outside the Sforza Castle in Milan, we see a fabulous modern work of public art, as the two portions of the needle and thread seen here are across the street from one another. The image then appears to have the sculpture continue under the street. Inside, the ceiling was painted by Michelangelo five hundred years ago; most impressive is the small section cleaned and restored to the original colors in recent years.

Pavia

Leaving Turin, we stopped at a Cistercian Abbey in Pavia, where the seven active monks live quiet lives of work and prayer. Here we see the beauty of their central flower garden in the first image, and the harshness of the individual cells as seen in the primitive sink.

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On to Turin

After Pisa, we headed to Turin. There was no tour to see the Shroud of Turin, which is not on normal display, and no one seemed to know if we could see anything. So we walked to a Cathedral, asked a few questions, and found the altar where the famed shroud is stored. The square shape above that altar is a reproduction of the face in the shroud. A wonderful find for us.

The image of the sunflowers reminds us of the beauty of northern Italy, where large fields of flowers are growing all summer for use in sunflower oil. I had no idea that would be a major cash crop.

The Leaning Campanile

We drove into Pisa and the bus dropped us off just across the street and past a wall from the Leaning Tower, or Campanile. What a wonderful world there is in the window of a Trafalgar Tour Bus! I also loved the leaning tree, which I never heard of before seeing it. Is there a heavy wind in Pisa, heavier than in Chicago?

City of Art and Architecture

A city of art and architecture, Florence is filled with buildings that are architectural works of art in their own right, and many of them are adorned or filled with works of art of all shapes and sizes. These two edifices are cathedrals; elsewhere, in a nondescript academy of art building, one can see the original DAVID, one of Michelangelo's true masterpieces.

Faces

Some faces we saw in Italy would include the mime we saw outside one of our fine restaurants, one where I ate pizza if I recall, and our excellent Trafalgar Tour Guide, Marco Cini. He was the architect of the trip and did an outstanding job!

Sunday in Florence

We arrived at the overlook outside Florence mid-day on a Sunday. All around the area there were wedding parties celebrating the day. We saw five weddings there at one time. Looking across at the city, the dominating building is the magnificent Florence Cathedral.

Under the Tuscan Sunflowers

The road from Roma to Firenze . . . Florence, in English . . . is brightly lit with lush fields of sunflowers. Upon our arrival in Tuscany, we stopped at an overlook outside Florence to see the town, featuring the famed Ponte Vecchio. In Italy every Ponte (bridge) is named, often for a family of importance in the area.

Headed to Trevi

A look down at the Coliseum, where much of the underground staging and storage areas are now open to the sky and therefore more impressive in their size and scope. Later that evening we of course threw coins into the Fontana de Trevi . . . The Trevi Fountain in English.