Five Cities, Five Distinct Personalities: Ravenna

We added Ravenna to our travel plans because Carol took a class on La commedia (in italian, where the language is not capitalized, only the first word in a book title is capitalized) over the Winter.  Of course, the prof’s name was Beatrice.  Our September travels  were primarily dedicated to un giro da la vita di Dante - a trip about the life of Dante.  He was exiled from his beloved Florence at about 23 years old and lived in Verona among other places.  The charges that resulted in his exile were trumped up, and he was judged while in Rome on a diplomatic mission that many scholars believe was set up to get him out of Florence so he could be falsely accused of misappropriation of civic funds.  This was about 1303.  La commedia takes place after he was exiled, but he does not directly talk about it.

Dante’s daughter, Antonia, later joined a convent in Ravenna. The author lived the last 20 or so years of his life there.  And, for the purpose of our trip, it is also where the great man is buried.   What we did not know is that the entire month of Sept is la festa dantesca, the Dante festival, as that is the month he died.  Not much was going on the two days we were there, but Carol would like to return with better knowledge of possible events to attend.  There were Dante readings in multiple languages, including Hungarian.

Dante's original burial site

The place of honor

Paying homage at Dante's tomb

We did find something really interesting for us.  The city of Ravenna is old.  It was once the Western capital of the Roman Empire.  Since then, it hasn’t seen much fame, other than now as a world heritage site for Roman mosaics.  We weren’t quite as keen to go from mosaic museum to mosaic museum as some, but we did locate Domus tappeti di pietra (carpets of stone.)  In the 1980s a man was digging a hole to build a garage.  The earth caved in and archeologists discovered a 14 room roman home, with amazing mosaic floors.  Today, a tourist can walk on elevated platforms from room to room.  One huge room was geometric designs with representations of the four seasons dancing in the center. That  sight alone was worth the trip to Ravenna.  We also visited a mosaic workshop where several people were painstakingly making copies of the ancient works.  

Superman works to re-create "Superman"

The ride to Ravenna was lovely.  We skirted the Po Delta, as we didn’t have time to ride through it, and with lots of water, innumerable roads which most likely didn’t have signs on them, and a hot day, we would have spent hours trying to find our way out of the maze.  Instead, we road through more farmland along canals.  We were nearly consumed by biting insects of various sorts, and had an all-around great ride.

Where the Po flows into the Adriatic

The delta makes a nest of dead-end roads

The only way to cross is on a small, rope-tow ferry

Other than those two activities, we walked the streets for hours, one of our favorite past-times.  

And you thought Pisa had the only leaning tower.

Five Cities, Five Distinct Personalities: Ferrara

The road to Ferrara was to be a long one...120 km.

We left early on a Sunday morning to avoid the traffic on a very busy highway.  We were told no semi's were allowed on the road until late Sunday evening.  What we experienced was a reminder that in Italy what's allowed and what actually happens rarely resemble one another.  The first vehicle to pass us---and almost blow us off the road---was a semi with tandem trailers.  For the most part however, our first 25km weren't all that bad.  At that point we got off the main road and onto a strada provinciale (a provincial road, which are typically without trucks and not a lot of traffic at all.)

 

The road was flat, much of it (80km) along a bike path built atop the levee of the River Po.  About 12 years ago Destra Po (right side of the Po) was developed for biking and walking along the river.  It is part of a national park.  Of course, if there is a Destra Po, there is also a Sinestra Po (Left side.)  You guessed it.  We weren't smart enough to figure out there would be TWO bike paths where we got on - which was of course also the only place you could get on one or the other and after the sign indicating such.  We got on Sinestra Po and rode about 7km towards Venice, to the north, before meeting a young couple out for a Sunday ride.  When we asked them about places for lunch up the trail, they informed us we were on the wrong trail!  Surprise, surprise.  We rode back with them to where the trail split, the correct trail going over a bridge at that point.  They were very nice, and it was about the first time we had seen a young couple riding together.  Very few woman are out here on anything other than city bikes for grocery shopping, etc.

Commune of Ferrara, not the city, which we entered about 5km further up the road.

 It felt nice to get to our destination.

Ah, Ferrara.  We were last here 13 years ago.  The city has changed dramatically, and while not to our taste, the local folks are most likely very happy with the "upgraded" ambience.

Our studio apartment was in a renovated 12th
century castle.    

A typical street

Another typical street

             

 The medieval city of Ferrara was protected by a surrounding wall...most of which is intact...and can be walked on today.  We walked a LONG way on the wall one afternoon to visit a ceramica, a factory where ceramics are made in the traditional style of the 14-1600s.  We bought one piece of theirs when here last, and it is one of our favorite pieces.

Never has there been a city dominated by one family like Ferrara.  The Dukes of Estes ruled Ferrara for hundreds of years.  They left their imprint on everything.  The Castello Estanse dominates the old city (We visited the Castello 13 years ago, and Carol had me thrown in the dungeon):

Este Castle, right smack in the middle of the old city.

We tried to find a single palazzo or church that did not bear the Este name.  

Diamonti Castle.  There are over 7000 pyramid-shaped stones on the front of the castle.

Those few that didn't turned out to have been built by Este nephews or in-laws.

The Estes were remarkable because they exerted influence throughout Italy totally out of proportion with their power base.  They managed to pull this off by waiting until the big power players deadlocked and then threw their support to the winning side...for a price.

They were also very good businessmen.  Early on, one of the Este dukes needed money and so invited some impoverished Jews to his city to act as money-lenders.  The Jews became prosperous, and the city thrived along with them...developing one of the first capitalist economies in Europe.   A good read that partially takes place in Ferrara and is about Spanish Jews forced to flee is The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi.  

A street in the old ghetto.

In 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain, Ercole d' Este invited them to Ferrara.  A good number came...giving the economy and the community a shot in the arm.

Carol at the old "Spanish" synagogue.

The plaque at the Spanish synagogue telling the story of the Estes' invitation of the Jews to Ferrara.

UNESCO named the Ferrara ghetto a World Heritage site.  The community grew and prospered until 1944, when the Nazi's shipped much of the population off to concentration camps.  Ad, speaking of books and authors, that story was made famous in the novel and movie, "In the Garden of the Finzi Contini."  Giorgio Bassani wrote a number of other novels and short stories, all taking place in Ferrara.      The author of that novel was born in Ferrara in this house.  It is across town from the ghetto.

Bassani's house, with a plaque telling who he was and that he lived here.

Look who visited the University!

Below is a photo of one of the Estes, at the entrance to the Piazza del Popolo (Piazza of the people.)  When it was last renovated, the column was made from tombstones taken from the Jewish cemetery.

    

...and at the end of the day...

The end of Roger's "work" day

The statue

The sign that says that in 1927 when the statue was redone, its base was made from tombstones in the Jewish cemetery.

When last there, Ferrara felt like a small town, even with a substantial tourist population.

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Five Cities, Five Distinct Personalities: Chioggia

We reluctantly bid farewell to Antonella and Padua and headed out for Chioggia.  By car, it's a simple 50 km, but to avoid major highways, we took the longer and scenic route and turned it into a 84 km jaunt.

The roads were flat.  The biggest challenge was avoiding the dead-ends caused by all the canals that inter-laced the Po delta.

You'll see from the map, Chioggia is 45 km south of Venice.  The main gate into the city tells the story of who ruled the town for centuries before Italian unification.

 

The coat of Arms of the Republic of Venice

Like it's more famous neighbor to the north, Chioggia is a city of canals.

View towards the other city in the lagoon

The principal difference between the two cities is that Venice is a tourist haven and Chioggia is a blue collar fishing village.

,Dinner in a fishing village

The main street is loaded with restaurants and shops to appeal to the few tourists they do get.  But if you cross one of the bridges, you end up in quiet and charming working-class neighborhoods, where the food is just as good and the Aperol Spritzes (called spritz aperol) are half the price, although the snacks are not as fancy, but great with aperol on a warm night.

Sit down, kick back and enjoy twilight, the real thing