Travels with Jake and Stone: August 2015

The Italian Alps

It was planned that after Sweetness! got her masters at NYU last year a family trip to Italy would be part of the celebration. However, finding gainful employment was task number one last summer so the Italy trip was scheduled for April, 2015. Jake opted to stay home to brush up on his first foreign language, English, leaving mother and child to have a buon viaggio. Stone and Sweetness! visited four cities in northern Italy: Ravenna, Bologna, Milan and Verona.

RAVENNA

Our duo wanted to go to Italian cities that neither of them had yet visited. Ravenna, which is but 5 miles from the Adriatic Sea, made the list because it has 8 of Italy's world-leading 51 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the US has 23). Ravenna is also the final resting place of Dante, whom Sweetness! read endlessly (it seemed) during her Italian studies.

Trattoria al Rustichello
Site of first and last meals.
No menu, owner suggested meals
based on your preferences.

Cappelletta -- specialty of the house.

Mosaic ceiling of Arian Bapistry

Rossetti painting in Dante Alighieri Museum

Galla Placidia (died 450 AD) Mausoleum
Site of early Byzantine mosaics

Three examples of the world-famous mosaics in Galla Placidia Mausoleum. Reputed to have inspired Cole Porter to write Night and Day while on a visit in the 1920s. Note the translucent panels, made out of very thin, translucent stone.

B&B in Ravenna included a big BR and small LR. Decorated nicely with sculptures and paintings. Host was very helpful with all things Ravenna, including scheduling haircuts for both Sweetness! and Stone.

Stone's Italian haircut.

Cold enough for earmuffs, jacket and scarf,
but -- must have gelato!

The Baptistry of Neon, converted from an old Roman bath house,
is the oldest monument in Ravenna and features fabulous mosaics.

Piazza del Popolo, the main piazza in Ravenna,
on a rainy day.

Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo,
dates from the 6th century, with side walls of
figurative mosaics.

Basilica of San Vitale also dates from the 6th century.

The apse features glittering green and gold mosaics
which must have looked even more beautiful in candlelight.

Mosaic of Emperor Justinian (527 AD-565 AD)
and his entourage decorate the left side wall. Note Justinian's halo.

BOLOGNA

Bologna is a short train ride from Ravenna. The day was Easter Monday, a major holiday in Italy, and our duo was concerned that Bologna might be closed down as was Penne on Easter Monday, 2009. However they were happily surprised to find this historic city bustling.

The famous 666 arches make this portico the longest in the world. It was originally constructed to protect the pilgrims from the rain on their way to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. It now protects shoppers as they make their own pilgrimages.

The famous 666 arches.

The Fountain of Neptune in Piazza del Nettuno. Normally, the nereids' breasts spout water, as they are lactating (16th century art often represented Nature as a lactating woman), but on this day the breasts were apparently resting. In the 1920s Mario Maserati used this representation of Neptune's trident in designing the Maserati logo.

Fountain of Neptune

It was time for lunch:

Lasagna Bolognese con
bechamel

Trattoria was busy downstairs, so our duo ate upstairs
virtually alone with their lasagna and tagliatelle Bolognese.

Worth seeing were the life-size terra cotta sculptures in Santa Maria della Vita. The scene is very dramatic and has been aptly called a "scream in stone." (Photos not allowed.)

The required selfie.

View from train.

2nd class packed, so Sweetness! suggested
sitting in 1st class till asked to show tickets;
never happened all the way back to Ravenna.

MILAN

Duomo -- first stone laid 1386, consecrated 1965.
Fifth largest church in the world.

Forty columns, each one 80 feet tall.

Up On the Roof...

The Duomo has over 3,000 statues and
over 100 gargoyles.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
One of the world's oldest shopping malls;
it was completed in 1877.

Sweetness! taught Sylvia at a language school
in New York last summer. They reconnected
in Milan over dinner.

Needle and Thread notes Milan's connection
with fashion.

Arc of Peace in Porto Sempione

Park worker's equipment with solar power!

Stefano and Sweetness! met during high school
exchange program -- reunited after 6 years.

Navigli -- a system of canals in Milan.
Mussolini shut down the majority of
the canals in an effort to "modernize"
Milan and take Italy "into the future."

Osso Bucco con Risotto Milanese

Late afternoon aperitifs -- an Italian Manhattan and
a White Lady, served by a barista who remembered our
duo two days later, and what they ordered.

VERONA

Verona was an easy train trip from Milan and is worth visiting for more reasons than to see the much ballyhooed Romeo and Juliet balcony (which is more myth than reality anyway).