Sienna better than Florence part 2

The Piccolomini Library, commissioned in 1492, is off the interior of the cathedral, The frescos tell the story of Siena's favorite son that eventually became Pope Pius II.
The colors and frescos are amazingly brilliant.  

Here's a close up of the bottom-left section of the above photo.
So much detail.  The room was sealed for centuries which ensured that the
frescos remained extremely-well preserved.

Extreme close up of above photo.

After the cathedral, we wandered through the museum and eventually found our way up two spiral staircases that led to an overlook of Tuscany. The view was breathtaking. I didn’t actually want to come down, but could’ve stayed up there for a day or two, taking in the sight of the rooftops and the hills rolling out away from the city.

Beautiful view of Siena's black-and-white Cathedral.

The Journalist loved the view of Tuscany from above the arch overlooking the Piazza Jacopo di Quercia.

Lovely view contrasting Medieval Siena with Tuscany's countryside.

We also checked out the baptistery (that actually supports the cathedral in its place on top of the hill) and the crypt. After that we walked down to the town square that’s shaped like a bowl. Each year when the palio is held, the race in Siena is held with the spectators standing in the middle of the bowl and the horses racing around the outside! I’m not sure how I’d feel about that…

Partial view of Piazza del Campo where the Palio takes place

After a quick pizza stop, we headed to Florence. Parking in Florence was kind of painful. I’m pretty sure we went through at least one no-drive zone which will probably result in a big fine, but it’s not like you can just stop in the middle of the road and refuse to go further when you see the sign! We finally found parking behind the train station in a seedy-looking garage that we were extremely happy to leave safely later that night! We walked into the downtown area and enjoyed the view of the duomo and the bell tower at night. There was an orchestra playing in the plaza and people out strolling, eating and enjoying the cool evening. We grabbed some pasta and gelato on our way out of town and managed to arrive home around 2 a.m. for the second night in a row!

La basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence's cathedral, a major Italian tourist attraction, was quite impressive at night.  

The dome, Il duomo, itself was a feat of 14th-century architecture and masonry.  Over 4 million brick make up this monster for which Fillippo Brunelleschi had to invent machinery to lift the massive 37,000 ton structure.

The Journalist and C pose in front of the 14th-century baptistery doors in Florence.

Close up of a panel of Florence's 14th-century baptistery doors.

Sienna better than Florence part 1

Moving constantly and living far away from family isn’t easy, but over the years we have been blessed with some really amazing friends who have become like family. J and C are two of these friends, so you can imagine our delight when we learned that J would be attending a conference in Vienna and C would be accompanying him! They started their Italian adventure in Rome and then joined us for a few days in Ferrara. We did a little sightseeing here with the kids and then managed to take a day to see some of the sights of Tuscany. My only visit to Florence previously was on a rainy day in December. I loved the view of the cathedral as it opens up down the road from the train station, but had heard from many people to skip Florence and see Siena instead, so we started our day there.

I think it might be my new favorite place in Italy! Siena sits on a hill, so you park near the bottom (in a garage that was easy to find) and ride escalators to the top where the cathedral is located. The cathedral, built out of greenish black and white marble, is so striking. We actually spent 10 minutes taking pictures of the backside of the church before we made our way around and realized where the front actually was!

Backside of the cathedral in Siena

Front of Siena's black and white cathedral...note the close ups below

Lion on middle left side

Look at the angry faces of these men.  The detail impressed me greatly.

Center figure nearest the bottom...holding what appears to be Sienna 

The interior is equally as impressive, with inlaid patterns in the marble floors. One of my favorite parts was an area off to the side that was full of what looked like huge books. In reality, they were musical scores that were large because the musicians had to share them. The thing that made them impressive were the beautiful pictures the monks drew to illustrate each page – in the same style as the books we read about in our history.    

Interior of Sienna's black and white church 

Lovely stained-glass window of the last supper in Sienna

Cieling/dome...believe it or not this is a flat surface.

The black and white columns make Sienna's cathedral one
of the most unique we've seen yet.

Psalters made by monks measure about 2 feet tall by about 3 feet wide

Extreme close up of the first letter of a psalter crafted by monks in the 16th century housed in Sienna's Cathedral.
Amazing detail in this letter "O."  This is not something that could be easily repeated today by hand.

Verona and the Opera pants - The Tragedy that was also a Comedy

After our trip to Verona for Pianogurl’s birthday, I was dying to see an Italian opera in the coliseum in Verona. So nearly as soon as our friends arrived from Rome, we hauled them up to Verona to take in the opera!

We arrived early, anxious to take our seats and enjoy the scrumptious picnic lunch I had prepared – chicken salad, homemade wheat bread, cantaloupe slices, grapes and gingersnaps. At the entrance, however, we were met with an astonishing fact. For all reserved seating at the opera, there’s a dress code. Dress code?! I didn’t read anything about a dress code anywhere! Argh! They assured us that we were welcome to take our place on the stone steps dressed as we were, but after shelling out good money to sit in the soft seats, there was no way we were sitting anywhere but in those soft seats!

Fortunately, we ladies were already wearing dresses and both guys were in collared shirts. We set off on a quest to find opera pants for the guys. Unfortunately, all of the shops along the road were either women’s shops or closed for the day. After walking nearly ¼ of a mile I was beginning to feel a little desperate. Should we buy beach towels and make long “skirts” for these husbands of ours? At last, we came to an open department store. Racing to the 3^rd floor, we began scanning the racks looking for cheap men’s pants in the appropriate sizes. Fortunately, both of our husbands wear sizes that are easy to find. We did have several good laughs watching our conservative men modeling the highly fashionable (and slightly ridiculous looking) European skinny pants, but we purchased and emerged from the store victorious! Unfortunately, the Linguist ended up with a pair that cost $50! Yikes! He maintained that he could wear them to church later, but after seeing them on, I have forbidden him to ever wear them anywhere but the opera.

We scooted back down the road to the opera gate, fearful that the shifts would’ve changed and we’d meet new ushers requiring ties, but all was well, and we were admitted without any more difficulty. Whew!

We found our seats and I passed out plates of chicken salad in full view of at least four different ushers. We ate and the show began! We were near the back of the section on the floor, but could hear well and see okay. It helped that the men had remembered to bring binoculars, so with each scene change we took a good look at the costumes and new stage elements.

The show we watched was Il Trovatore by Girabaldi.  It opens with the re-telling of the tragedy that has befallen the Di Luna family. Years ago they had a young daughter who died. A local gypsy woman was blamed for the death of the baby and burned at the stake. Innocent, she charged her daughter with exacting her revenge by stealing the family’s youngest son and burning him alive. Distraught at having watched the death of her mother, the terrified daughter took the son, but mistakenly burned her own child, saving the baby she was supposed to kill. As the years passed, she raised this child as her own – tortured by the fact that she loved him as a mother, but in doing so, was betraying her own mother. Meanwhile, the eldest son, Captain Ferrando Di Luna, has been charged by his dying father to seek his lost brother and bring him home.

After this background information, the story opens at the present day and introduces Leonora and the two men who are in love with her – ironically, the two brothers. One is now a powerful political figure and the other (the one raised by the gypsy) a renegade because of his political views. A duel ensues when our heroine mistakes one for the other in the darkness. Fearing her lover (the gypsy boy) has been killed, she decides to take her vows and become a nun. The set for this was pretty ingenious as a tower set in the middle of the stage opens to reveal a glittering, gold interior reminiscent of many of the churches we’ve toured in Italy.

Photo of the mock up of the nunnery where Leonora goes to give herself to God.  

 Our hero arrives in time to keep her from taking her vows (he actually won the duel and didn’t kill his opponent for some mystical reason he doesn’t understand until the gypsy daughter explains that the other man is, in truth, his brother) and whisks her away to marry her. Of course, his nemesis also arrives, so there’s some posturing by each of the two armies the men command. I actually enjoyed all of these larger scenes much more than the solo scenes of the lead players. The costumes and choreographer were exciting to see, and I think my favorite of all were the scenes with the gypsies. The tortured daughter gypsy had an amazing voice and the expression on her face would have sent me running the other way. Additionally, the solo scenes were a lot longer and not being able to understand the words, I kept wondering what we were missing…

But back to the plot – the gypsy daughter ends up captured by the Captain Ferrando's men and when she says she will appeal to Manrico for help, then Ferrando knows he has ammunition to destroy his opponent. Sure enough, he’s able to capture Manrico who comes to the aid of the only mother he’s ever known. Leonora appeals to him, promising to marry him if he’ll just let her lover go free. He agrees to the proposition and grants her access to the dungeon to see her lover one last time. Here, she reveals to her lover that she’s taken poison and will soon die rather than betray their love. Unfortunately, Ferrando who is standing behind her, hears this revelation as well. As soon as Leonora dies, he kills the gypsy lover, at which point the gypsy daughter reveals to him that he’s just killed the brother he’s been searching for his whole life and then kills herself. Ferrando kills himself, too. The show ends with this final death scene of all four of the main characters.

I don’t remember at exactly what point we had an intermission break, but as we were standing to stretch our legs and munching our gingersnaps we were told that no food was allowed in that area of the arena – just drinks. I couldn’t help laughing since we’d passed out plates of chicken salad just an hour before and no one said a word. No wonder the folks in front of us were scowling! We’ve just gotten so used to the scowls, that I didn’t pick up on the fact that anything was wrong!

All in all, I enjoyed my first Italian opera immensely and started plotting how I could attend all of them that are playing this season. Unfortunately, they begin at 9:15 p.m. and our show didn’t finish until well past midnight, so it makes the 1 ½ hour trek home (by the time you walk to the car and then drive) REALLY late. But since they run 5 shows each year, and do a different show each night, in theory, we could stay in Verona for a few days and see them all! The Linguist, however, says that one Italian opera is enough for him. His box is checked. In my opinion, he just doesn’t want to wear his opera pants again…

Verona Birthday visit not a Grecian island but still very intriguing

So Pianogurl wanted a cruise to a Grecian island for her birthday...well wouldn't we all.  Instead she was happy to get a chance to go visit the historic city of Verona.  It's an awesome mix of Roman, Venetian, ancient all in one package.  The pictures tell the

CastelVecchio (Old Castle) from 1355...built by the
aristocatic family Scaligieri

Cool lamp we saw on the above listed castle

The Arena of Verona, one of the best preserved in Italy, is still in use today.  Yes it's super old (2000 years or so)!
(We have an upcoming blog post on the opera we saw here later).  Very different than the coliseum in Rome that you can't really walk all over.  This one you can.

The Net and Deep Thinker were really impressed
by the scenery of the opera Il Trovatore (we must have 25 different photos of the battling knights).

One example of the battling knights...20 feet tall

These are the cheep seats...solid, cool and old.

The Roman water flow system of Verona's Coliseum is still in use today.

Cool photo shot of the riverAdige from the bridge of the Castelvecchio (courtesy of the Net)

Very life-like statue in the 12th Century Chiesa di San Lorenzo

For the Romeo and Juliet fans out there, Verona has plaques like the above throughout the city...
 and of course Juliet's balcony

Ancient Roman entrance to Verona called Porta Borsari

Classic Italian roadway in old town Verona

La Piazza del Erbe used to be the center of activity in medieval times.
Today's ambiance is still super neat with restaurants, shopping, fountains
and Greek Gods watching the whole scene...see below 

Greek Gods and the lion the symbol of Venice.

Here's the infamous Juliet's balcony...
she never really existed but... 

But there's a very happy lock salesman making money on tourists
expressing their love and commitment through a good, trusty lock.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this super cool, probably 400 year old window...which is probably older than the USA!

Pianogurl's birthday

When Pianogurl was 12 and wanted to read the Twilight series, I told her she had to be 15 first. Now that she's turning 15, she's trying to take me up on that. I told her she isn't old enough, which of course brought on the, "But, Mom, you said..." To which I replied, "Well, when I said that I didn't know you'd be so young when you turned 15!" Where does the time go?

 How does one of these...

turn into one of these?

Homemade Ravioli and the 4th of July...

...not at the same time, but they seemed appropriate for a July post from Italy. I guess because of all the time we've devoted to photographing food for realwomenstoregrub.com, we just can't seem to get out of the habit of taking pictures of our food. Here are the latest things we've cooked up.

Ferrara is known for it's cappellacci di zucca -- basically pasta in the shape of little hats filled with pumpkin or squash. We LOVE it and eat it at every opportunity. Recently I purchased a cookbook by an Italian American chef who grew up in Florence (just over an hour from here). I couldn't resist trying his ravioli di zucca with a sauce made from burro e salvia (butter and sage). My attempt at pasta was a terrible failure, but the filling was divine! I think it might be the best in Ferrara!

My pasta was WAY to thick and totally drowned out the zucca flavor. Next I need a pasta maker! Since I had a lot of filling left over, we made a zucca "lasagna" with it. It was heavenly!

This is not Italian food, but we sure love these cookies anyway!

Trying out a new, healthier dessert after all the cookies -- this is layered fruit with a whipped cream/lime/cream cheese layer in the middle. 

I found the recipe for the most clever 4th of July cake ever and had to make it.

Missionaries are always willing to try food experiments, so we invited them over for a slice...

Is it not the coolest 4th of July cake ever? It even tasted good, and I'm no lover of cake! Who thinks of these clever things?