Christmastime in the City...

This weekend I went down to the Duomo area to take in the Christmas decorations and caught a free show at Palazzo Marino. This time it was Cupid and Psyche. I didn't think we were allowed to take pictures in there, so I didn't. It's cool, at this palace right near the galleria, they have small free shows with a few pieces at a time, changing every month or so. This time it was a great Canova sculpture and a painting by François Gérard. Both of these pieces were on loan from the Louvre, and are pretty much masterworks. Anyway, pretty great. Anyway, the snow is still up on everything. The Christmas tree in the Duomo square is actually much smaller than last years, but still nicely decorated. (It's not as big as it looks in this picture!)





Well, this is my last day in Italy, I am on my way to the airport right now... I guess this spells the end of my blog on Italy! Maybe I will take up another blogging project, but until the end of the year expect greatest hits, odds and ends, and some reflection of my time here. Goodbye Milano!

Saturday Morning Church Tour

Saturday morning we got up early to go see Cenacolo, the Leonardo Da Vinci Last Supper, at Santa Maria delle Grazie. It was a pretty cool experience, it is truly a masterpiece. Our group of 25 included a Japanese tour group, who were a bit of a block, but they were also guided around to see some other things in the refectory so we got some unobstructed time. After the Last Supper, we toured the inside of the church, which had some beautiful carved icons.



We walked past the fair, which was still on.



We were on our way over to the Santo Stefano Maggiore area and we passed by a 1928 tram next to a new one. The future and the past!



We were on our way first to San Bernardino alle Ossa, Vio's selection for weird churches. The church is famous for its ossuary. It's a little creepy, no? Still, a unique sight.



The ceiling fresco was actually really awesome, with cool layered corners. The bone decorations are fascinating.



After we popped into Santo Stefano.



We headed back to the Duomo area for Panzerotti at Luini's and gelato at Cioccolati Italiani...

Thursday Evening

After the museum, we went to lunch at Ae Oche, a pretty cheap and decent pizzeria.



We went to Scuola di San Rocco after lunch, one of my favorite weird sights in Venezia. The whole thing is decked out in Tintoretto paintings. The ground level is pretty sober looking, but up on the first floor it's pretty bonkers, with really weird allegorical carvings by Pianta. After we took the boat out to see the inside of Santa Maria della Salute.



We decided to take a boat around the "bottom" of Venice, between the main part of the city and Giudecca, just to see a little new territory. Man, it got dark quite quickly on our boat trip! By the time we were at the west end of Giudecca it was pretty much completely night-time. We were on the 2 vaporetto, and we rode all the way around to Rialto just so we could walk over and see the bridge.



We had dinner at a little place not so far from our hotel. I am not sure I ever saw the sign for the place. We were pretty close to the only customers, it was a cold slow night.



We had pasta dishes and grilled veggies, and some red wine of course. The guy who was running the place gave us a little dessert and aperitif liqueur so we were there for quite a while relaxing and enjoying.



It was a good night!

The Second Part of Wednesday

After the Basilica, we headed back to our hotel on the Vaporetto to warm up for a bit before dinner. A kind gentleman took our photo while we were leaving from St. Mark's.



I have a bunch of photos of Santa Maria della Salute in the sunset from different angles.





We passed the DHL boat making its rounds.



For dinner we just started wandering south of our hotel and went the first place that had an appealing menu. Since the tourists were so thin on the ground, the proprietors were out in force dragging in us strays. Vio had gnocchi, I had eggplant parmesan. For dessert we made it down to the Grom by Frari. I had Zabaione... Vio had... I don't know but she's clearly into it!



I took a bacio hot chocolate for the road home!

Wednesday In Venezia Part 1

Well, I put Vio on the plane back to Boston today... I'm all alone in Italy! Sad. At least it was a nice vacation for us. I still have a lot to share from our vacation, so expect bits of it for the rest of the week.

Wednesday was our first whole day in Venezia. We got up and had our breakfast at the hotel, complete with coffee drinks. We headed into Saint Mark's on the vaporetto. Vio was a little doubtful about the boats at first, but she ended up going for it.



We did the Secret Itineraries tour at the Doge Palace that morning. It was great the last time, and was great this time. It deserves its spot on my Venice "must do" list for guests. We puttered about the palace after the tour, the place was pretty deserted. I liked this Doge's head in the sculptural elements section.



We grabbed a quick pizza lunch just off the square, then headed to Saint Mark's Basilica next. We got the Pala D'Oro to ourselves for a few minutes. (That is a true sign of how deserted it was.) It was the best.



Vio talked me into seeing the treasury. She likes reliquaries too much.



There were some pretty cool normal treasures in there too. They have a free audio guide to the treasury, but it's a little off, there are several things in the guide that aren't in there anymore. The treasury was cool to see, but there wasn't any one thing that stuck out.

And of course we went up to the balcony and the museum.



Even at the early hour we were up there, around 3:15pm, the sun was already starting its journey to the horizon...

Stop, Duomo Time

Yesterday we had the full Duomo experience. We went to the baptistery, down to the crypt, up the bell tower, and through the Duomo works museum. All pretty great. That took up most of our sightseeing time for the day, but it was worth it!

Dracula

Been having a good, busy weekend. My friend Stan was here for just one night, in the middle of a trip. (He's already in Provence at this point!) We had a quick visit yesterday and today. Stan's been here in Milan a lot before, he actually lived here a few years as a kid and has come back for visits every few years, so we didn't have to do the "typical" sights. After having lunch in Brera, we headed over to the Triennale. The latest special exhibit is on Dracula. It's a bit of an odd exhibit, not completely dedicated to one aspect of Dracula, but not quite a themed art show.

The first section was about the history and myth of Dracula and vampires, building up to how Bram Stoker broke through by connecting Vlad the Impaler to vampirism. This part had lots of informative text, and historic artifacts including old books on Vlad, on vampires, vampire charms, and Ottoman arms and armor. It talked about Stoker's research, portrayals of vampires in his day, and ended with the first edition copy he gifted to his mom. So that was a very factual (in the sense it explained where the fiction came from) part.

Next, some mixed media video installations. A "peephole" vampires' kiss montage, a vampire home with descriptive video, and a large multi-screen installation with a history of vampire movies.

Then, an exhibit on vampire costumes. This had an original Francis Ford Coppola Dracula armor set, and a pretty good video on the costume design of the movie with a lot of direct commentary from the designer herself, Eiko Ishioka.



This was followed by costumes for female "vamps" from theater, opera, and screen. There was also an odd exhibit of comic panels by a famous Italian comic artist that he had done for his own private collection of one of his famous heroines meeting Dracula.

I liked the exhibit overall, but I had expected more of a straight contemporary art show... After we walked around the castle.



We headed in toward the Duomo, and had a little shopping and light dinner at La Rinascente. Cioccolati Italiani for dessert!

Topkapi

Saturday afternoon I headed to Topkapi Palace, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. These gates are the entrance to the museum area.



A lot of the palace is open to see, along with different collections of treasures. This part is the Divan, where the sultan's advisors would confer. There's a little hidden window that the sultan could use to peek in at.



The palace is full of lovely decorations. Tiles, of course, are prevalent.



I loved the atmosphere and the decorations, but some of the collections were just amazing. The collection of arms and armor had some amazing pieces. Many of the swords are known properties of different sultans. The swords of the sultans were particularly amazing. Many of them have engraved blades with calligraphy inlaid in gold and hilts with jewels. There's also the true treasure collection, with huge diamonds and emeralds, thrones, and the famous Topkapi dagger.



The sunset was beautiful from the palace.

Saturday with the Students

Saturday I relaxed in the morning. I took my time at the breakfast buffet. I met up with Markus, Anne, and Kai at breakfast, so we could all go out sightseeing. We headed down to the Sultanahmet district. Some older tourists asked us to take their picture, and enthusiastically wanted to take ours for us! This is in front of the second gate of Topkapi Palace.



We were on our way to the Blue Mosque. I thought it was quite beautiful, but I must admit I had thought it would be bluer!



Since it's still a house of worship, you must remove your shoes and women must cover their hair.



The mosque is in great shape, it doesn't look 400 years old. The interior designs are amazing. It would be cool to be able read all the calligraphy. Most of the mosque is blocked off for worshipers, so we just sat on the carpet and admired the interior from one vantage. We started walking back toward Hagia Sophia and Topkapi, and got distracted by this candy-maker.



I treated Kai to a candy. Mine was kiwi and sour cherry. The candy doesn't harden, it's halfway between a hard candy and molasses in texture.



We sat down in the square and had a little lunch snack, before we parted ways, them for Hagia Sophia, and me for Topkapi...

Bosphorus Cruise

Thursday night, the gala dinner for the conference was on a Bosphorus Cruise! We took off near the Dolmabahçe Mosque. The traffic getting to the boat was crazy! They actually had us get out and walk the last few blocks.



The boat had lots of nice outdoor seating, so we could enjoy the view as we cruised along. In the background of this shot is the Bosphorus Bridge, which has an LED light system that cycles through several colors and patterns. In this shot it's in the middle of its rain sequence.



We had dinner indoors. The food on the boat was OK, but not as good as the restaurant food! The conference speeches were kept to a minimum. After dinner we got another look at the sights. This is Rumelihisarı, the castle near the second Bosphorus bridge.



I had a really good time just enjoying the view from the boat, and got to chat with a few more people. It was a good evening, but we didn't get back to the hotel until eleven thirty or so, it was a long day so I was pretty wiped out.

Thursday Spice Market

After Hagia Sophia, I ran into Martin and his friend Robert at the hotel, on their way to the Spice Market. They talked me into joining them, and it was great. The Spice Market was a manageable size and crowd level. And it did smell great in there.



Spices were popular, as were teas. All the booths had plenty of workers, and while they weren't shy to start talking to you, they weren't super aggressive.



Besides spices and teas, there were candies, jewelry, scarves and other clothes, toiletries, toys, and more. One of the coolest things we saw were natural sponges. Robert ended up buying one for his son.



We ended up at stall 54 buying spices. Martin and Robert both bought a lot of different things for their wives, which we all enjoyed tasting. I bought just star anise, and I think the price I got was alright.



It was a fun distraction from the conference!

Hagia Sophia

On Thursday I took a little time to see the Hagia Sophia. I think this was my favorite "sight" that I saw. When you go to see Hagia Sophia, you are too close to it to take a good picture of the outside. It's just that big. So these are all interior shots of the magnificent building!



All the mosques I visited had beautiful chandeliers. They're usually hung low, as they used to utilize oil lamps that weren't so bright and required a lot of tending. You can see them here in this shot of the interior through the Imperial Gates.



This was the largest cathedral in the world for almost a thousand years, built by Emperor Justinian. It was converted into a mosque in the 1400's. The original architectural decorations were already fairly geometric in nature, as they were in a Byzantine style. You can see some of the conversion decorations in the background here, including the giant calligraphic shields with names of prophets. You can see the incredible patterned marbles on the floor too.



Empress Zoe mosaic was neat. These are leftovers from the Christian era, I believe they were plastered over while it was a mosque.



Overall, I was really impressed with Hagia Sophia. I followed the tour in the Rick Steves guidebook I borrowed from Esther and it led me all around the building, describing the obvious stuff, and pointing out the slightly off track stuff, like the pillar of St. Gregory, with the miracles and all that. If you go to Istanbul, don't miss this place!