Citrus

The Borromeo Islands are known for their citrus... Here are my lemon and lime souvenirs along with the toys from Kinder Eggs.

Art

So the reason I headed up was actually to see my friend Blake's art show. He was participating in the XI Edizione del Simposio Siviera, the title of the symposium was "I love.it" There were nine artists total participating in the symposium. The opening reception was at Casa Giulia along the shore in Verbania Pallanza, a pretty great setting.



Blake had a very prolific week. I couldn't believe how many works he completed for the symposium! It was a very successful show, he even sold the work up top here.



The opening was pretty well attended, and there was even a band.



After we went for dinner with Susanne, the artist in the green clogs in the first photo, and her husband, and then headed down to the train station courtesy of one of the symposium organizers, Amedeo. It was a great night, and boy were we tired when we got on the train heading home.

Palazzo Borromeo

Isola Madre also has a Palazzo on it. It's less spectacular than the one on Isola Bella, but it has a lot of cool old furnishings. For whatever reason, there were multiple puppet theaters. Some were whole room sized, some were just medium large. This one was meant to represent hell. A lot of the puppets were really creepy.



Some of the rooms were less creepy! There were a few cool reception rooms with Murano chandeliers. This room had a garden theme with painted vines up the walls.



After finishing up touring the villa, I headed out on the ferry.



Goodbye to the islands!

Isola Madre

After Isola Bella, I took the ferry to Isola Madre. The gardens there are much more naturalistic than the Isola Bella gardens. One thing they are famous for is their wisteria.



The island was also infested with random art when I was there, including a large promenade of metal dogs.



There were also lots of birds on the island roaming the gardens. Peacocks of course, both regular and white peacocks.



There were a few aviaries in the center of the island, with parakeets, budgies, lovebirds, pheasants, and more.



The birds were pretty charming to encounter in the gardens.

Isola Bella Gardens

While the palace was pretty awesome, I would say that it was overshadowed by the gardens! The gardens take up most of the island. The center of the garden is a giant plaza, with a big tiered structure at the end of the island opposite the palace. Oh, and there were a bunch of white peacocks.



The base of the structure includes a fountain, too.



On the back of the structure are tiers of flowers and citrus trees. Walls and walls of roses. I guess that I was there at the perfect time since all the roses were in bloom.



The garden is in the Italianate style, so there are lots of ponds and statues.



This guy is holding the emblem of the Borromeo family.



Outside the garden on the few local streets, there are also some cute little mini-gardens. Not as elegant as the Borromeo's, but still awesome.

Palazzo Borromeo

The palace itself is done in a few different styles. The upper story is pretty much classic palace, with lots of great windows and stuffy furniture. The lower story is done up as a grotto, which is way funkier!



There are also lots of random artifacts in the grotto, like these 16th century riding harnesses belonging to Cardinal Borromeo.



There was also a sweet wishing grotto. I did throw in some Eurocents.



The palace also had a lot of bizarre allegorical zoological tapestries, with some very odd looking serpents...

Visiting Lago Maggiore

Blake's art show was up in Verbania. Going up to see it, I decided to take the whole day and visit the Borromeo islands too. On Saturday morning I took the train up to Stresa, which is a resort town lakeside.



There's lots of grand old hotels along the promenade where the ferry is. I love the boards that they use to post the ferry times!



First stop Isola Bella, one of the private islands of the Borromeo family. It's a beautiful spot.



Great gardens, a fancy palace, lots of art and antiquities. Kinda over the top for a family whose motto is:



Humilitas!

More photos are in the queue for the blog. Lots of beautiful stuff!

Banking

So I finally got an Italian bank account. They take the online banking very seriously here. I have a customer number that is my online ID, a pin code, and also this one time use key generator. If I want to do anything other than just look, I have to input the code that pops up when I press the little grey button.



I have decided not to ever take this out of the house!

Random Neighborhood Stuff

At the Penny Market they are taking down the wall to the parking lot part-way to get more visibility, which means they are destroying some of the cool street art that's there. Sad.



At the Politecnico campus closest to my house, they have some great industrial relics. These wooden "wheels" are molds for sandcasting up on one of the buildings. They look pretty cool!

Novecento

Novecento is the "new" modern art museum of Milan. It's down on the Piazza del Duomo, connected to the Palazzo Reale. Blake and I visited last Sunday in the late afternoon and early evening. The place is pretty huge. This piece below is one of the first we saw, part of a sort of mixed media introductory exhibit. Motor oil drowning a clay city.



I had always known the museum was there on the square because of this large neon sculpture you can see quite easily.



The main exhibit of permanent collection works is grouped by movement. There's a small international works grouping, but the whole thing is very Italian focused, with rooms dedicated to individual movements or even individual artists. The museum started at Futurism, and got up to 70's-ish in the timeline. The last room or so was Arte Povera.

Naviglio Grande

Last weekend I took a visit to Naviglio Grande with Blake. The Navigli district is a bit of a party neighborhood, with tons of restaurants along the Grand Canal.



Even during the day there's lots of people out drinking and touring. The area has a lot of graffiti and art. This particular wall mask was kinda creepy, but kind of cool.

Duomo!

On Miranda's last day in Milan, we did what one must do... go to the Duomo. The insides were lovely as usual. The crowds are up since tourist season is starting, so there were lots of people lighting offerings.



The stained glass was Miranda's favorite thing, and rightly so. The grand windows in the back are just awesome.



The stained glass comes from a variety of periods, some are even modern! I wish we were able to puzzle out the ages for the big ones in the back, which were clearly older, but... didn't look like they were original to the earliest period of the church. This pic below has a great detail, of Moses and a tiger.



By the stained glass in the back is a good spot to get a picture of the marble floor patterns unencumbered, too!



And we did head up to the roof. The oncoming clouds were actually a benefit for picture taking!



As always, seeing the roof is inspiring, and you notice random details you've never seen before. And you get to take sweet pictures!

OK, I Lied

One more post about Verona. As Verona is part of the Veneto, they have a lot of stuff you typically associate with Venezia, like masks and fans. I bought this little decorate pill box to use in my purse. It's tiny, an inch in the largest dimension at most!

Verona 5

This is the last of it! We finished our Verona day in the Giusti Gardens. There were lots of cute turtles in the fountains.



They have a pretty good hedge maze, though since it's short, it's not too difficult.



I always love the face on the belvedere! During parties they used to spray fire out of the balcony's mouth! Pretty awesome. And the view from up there is pretty awesome too.



On our way to the train station, we passed the props for the opera in the arena. They just store all of them on the square, so you have sphinxes from Aida next to dragons from Turandot!



And then we were on our way home...

Verona 4

We headed over to Teatro Romano, to enjoy the ruins and see the cloister built on them, the Jesuits had a convent to St. Gerolamo there. The theater itself is still sometimes used for performances.



I'm going to have to try to get to one of the shows here, or at the Roman arena of Verona.



The cloister hosts an archaeological museum of Verona. Mostly Roman stuff but some older. The buildings themselves are quite pretty, too!



The objects include mosaics and marble sculptures, but also little bronze knickknacks.