Field Trip!

(Started October 21, but I am now home)

I'm on a field trip to Ferrara, Mantua (known in Italian as Mantova), and Parma! I left early yesterday morning, sat in a bus for hours, and then toured Ferrara. We visited Mantua today and leave tomorrow morning for Parma. We'll arrive home late tomorrow night.

Our bus holds about 40 people, and is crammed. Fortunately, I like my seatmate just fine: she's a 42-year-old substitute middle school teacher for English and French, and she's just dandy. I've sat next to her for more than 8 hours altogether plus spent an equal number of hours on tour and still don't know her name...how lame is that? I do know that she has two dogs, has been married 14 years, and has a husband in the police force in some capacity. Her sister and her sister's friend are also on the tour, and are seated behind us.

There is also the requisite self-appointed guide (SAG), who knows everything and wants to prove how brilliant he is to the tour guide and the rest of us. Which is lovely, but he can be rather interruptsome at times. We have the "know-nothings" and the "oblivious" participants. In general, though, it's a pretty decent group...and they are remarkably punctual!

So. First stop: Ferrara. We arrived just in time for lunch (to be taken on one's own). Some bright soul had the idea to ask a local where to get a panino. This local helpfully took us to the "best" panineria in the area: about 2 km through winding streets. Bear in mind, we would have to find our way back. As we arrived, though, I spotted an Indian restaurant across the street. Knowing that a panino will never be hard to find and that Indian is hard to find, I dived right in. Unsurprisingly enough, no one followed me inside, despite my having invited them! A delicious multi-course meal later, I strolled out a chicken jalfrezi heavier (plus naan! And rice! And dal!) and 10 euros lighter. I knew that there was a merceria (generally a lingerie/sewing goods/yarn/baby supplies store, but you can never tell) nearby, so I set off to find it. It disappointingly turned out to be only a lingerie store, but it was closed in any case.

Time to check out the Palazzo Estense! This is located on the edge of the medieval part of Ferrara, and was a protective fortress for Ferrara and against Ferrara as I understand it. You see, the Este family was part of the tax collecting branch of the government and there was always the risk that the overburdened tax payer would rise up in revolt. The palazzo is one of the few moated palazzi in Europe, and is terribly romantic with its drawbridges, renaissance-updated frit, and its general cuteness. It was attached to the main palazzo for easy access in an emergency, although over time (as the dangers became less), it developed into an annex rather than an escape fortress. Today, it houses a museum and governmental offices, so we mostly just walked through it quickly. (After the fact, I found out that there is a bit more to visit than what the tour guide said, but without enough time to see everything, she had to make choices.)

Drawbridge mechanism for Jeremy

Catapult ammunition

This section of the tower houses a hanging garden, complete with citrus trees

Next stop: the Duomo. Shrouded completely for restoration purposes, the facade was invisible. According to the Ferrara guide, that is the highlight of the Duomo. A good thing, too, in my opinion, because the interior was a Baroque excrescence that just made me shudder. But, hey, I'm sure some people love it! The flanking exterior was another mess of periods, from the original, to the Baroque extensions, to the medieval porticos that were smashed onto the side to allow shopkeepers (made Jesus and his response to the moneychangers in the temple come to mind). To add to the sense of temporal whiplash, there was a fascist tower block just across the avenue.

Far right, original bell tower. The roof additions are baroque.
The upper main facade is original-ish, the front section
developed a 100 years or so after construction.

Into the Jewish quarter for us! It was a really beautiful section of town, with lovely palazzi and decent streets. There is only one remaining temple (the rest were destroyed during bombing in WWII, I think), but the area used to boast temples for the different provenances: sephardic, ashkenazi, etc. Because the local nobility wanted money, they welcomed the population as a source of loans. Later on in the renaissance period, it became a locked ghetto; although still "nice" as far as housing, availability for cultivation land, and so on, the residents had to be back in and behind the locked gates at night...yow.

Jewish quarter

I liked the overhang of this palazzo

We then went to the first street in Ferrara: the Street of Arches, it is a darling arcade between two rows of houses, and each archway is different. This street was built parallel to the river (when it still coursed there...its flow has been rerouted at this point, but I'm not sure when that was done).

So sweet!

Ferrara is actually in a sense two cities: the center is actually located at the former furthest extent of the medieval town (the Estense fortress). During the Renaissance, however, someone whose name I have now forgotten decided to impress his new wife or someone else (sorry, but the details have slipped) by doubling the size of the town. In order to do this, he essentially slapped a pile of buildings up on the other side of the medieval wall (which he tore down and turned into a road). So half the town has a lot of medieval buildings that are still quite intact, but it was time to move on to the other half, all Renaissance.

A few sights:

These made me think of Eleanor perched
in the rafters during home construction

The Diamond Palazzo, so named because
of the shaped stones all over the facade.
Rather ugly, I thought, but apparently
 it is really nifty to observe over time
 because as the light changes, the colors
of the stones change.

And off to the hotel for the night.

Love,

Alexandra