Verona 3: Lamberti Tower

We went up the Torre di Lamberti. It's the tallest thing in the middle of Verona, the views are great! We took the elevator up, with all the walking we were doing I thought we needed to conserve our energy...



The elevator stops where the bells start. The tower has a few levels of bells. They clearly stated in several languages when the bells would strike...



I was a little terrified of the concept, but Miranda wanted to stay up for the bells striking at 1pm. So we stuck it out, and thank goodness, they only struck the largest bell once!



Miranda was a little disappointed! The bells don't swing on their bearings, and the clapper doesn't move either... If you look at this bell, you can actually see the electric striker, it's that white thing on the beam. It's basically a solenoid-fired pin. So we didn't see the action, just heard the peal. I am glad it was just one!

Verona 2

After Juliet's, we stopped by the Chiesa Rettoriale Santa Maria Antica. It's got cool monuments outside, but I also admire just the craftsmanship on the ironwork.



One of the chapels is to Maria and the Sacred Heart. All those medallions behind her are of the sacred heart.

Verona 1

Monday the 7th, Miranda and I went to Verona! I have so many great photos, you will have to see them over several days...

First up, our first real stop, Casa di Giulietta. Juliet's house, as in Romeo and Juliet. Maybe a fake, but still pretty cool. On Via Cappello. There's lots of professions of love scribbled inside the entrance to the courtyard.



The interior gates are also entirely covered in love locks!



Traditionally, you touch Giulietta's breast for luck.



Miranda and I scrawled on the tunnel on our way out. Mew of course put up her and Jon's initials, I put up:

Sunday in Como

On Sunday, Miranda and I headed to Como. We ate lots of random tasty things, but our main activities were taking the funicular up to Brunate and the hydrofoil ferry to Lenno to see Villa Balbianello.



While Brunate is super picturesque, the real reason to go is the funicular. Why are funiculars so cool? Maybe I just like them because they are like cable cars in San Francisco, but with cooler seating. Although we managed to get a spot in the front of the car in the picture window, so we were too excited to sit.



Lenno was also very picturesque! The coastline of the lake has all kinds of little piers and boats.



To get to Villa Balbianello, you can either walk through the woods, or take a private launch. This villa was in Casino Royale, where James goes to recover from torture. It's a pretty amazing villa. I have tons of photos, you should look over on my flickr page to see them all. The gardens are so beautiful.



We were pretty exhausted after walking all over Lenno, but the ferry ride back to Como perked us up!



After taking the train back from Como we went to Platz. Platz is only about five minutes walk from Piazza Bausan, a place my landlord recommended. I really like the food, and since we are in a neighborhood, the prices are great. We shared gnocco fritto and wine, and Miranda had a huge plate of carpaccio!

Saturday!

Saturday we had a relatively relaxed day. We headed to the castle to actually head into the museums. Good thing, it was a rainy day!



We went to some of the collections I had seen before, like the objects of art. (Including this terrifying devil automaton.)



And some collections I hadn't seen, including the musical instruments, the tapestries, and the ceramics. This crab sculpture is giant, by the way.



It lightened up a little when we made it over to have a pizza lunch on Via Dante.



In the evening we walked over to St. Ambrogio to check out the church, and then headed home in the evening for a little bit of yummy dinner! We had stuffed gnocchi...

Friday Afternoon

In the afternoon, Miranda and I went to Pinacoteca di Brera! I don't have pics from the inside as it is a no camera museum, but there was a pretty cool water fountain in the courtyard.



The Pinacoteca di Brera also houses an art school in its buildings, so there were lots of 20-ish Italian students hanging out on the grounds. The signs also say there is an observatory in the building! It would be pretty useless at this point because of all the light pollution in Milan, but cool to see as a historic facility. Next time maybe? One of the cool things here is that a lot of the museums stay open pretty late into the evening. The Pinacoteca has its last admission at something like 7:15 PM. Anyway, the art selection was fun, and the museum is a good size, not too large, not too small. The collection focuses on Italian art, mostly from renaissance to 1800's. The most famous painting there is probably Hayez's "The Kiss". Another cool thing going on at the museum is that they have a lot of their conservation and renovation stuff sitting out in the rooms of the museum. They had a bundle of paintings sealed into a chemical treatment environment in the middle of one of the gallery rooms, and a huge conservation easel glassed off in another.

We wandered over to the castle, since we weren't too hungry after the museum.



But we went back to Brera in the end to have aperitivo. Miranda got a great fruity cocktail, I have got to get into that! On the way out we browsed the stores, saw some cool shoes!

Friday Downtown

After shopping we headed into town to start seeing the sights. First stop was going through the Galleria to find our gelato! For the first time I noticed the nautical details in some of the mosaics.



I made Miranda the traditional spin, she did a good job on it!



The Louis Vuitton store has arrows in the window displays, they are pretty cool! Miranda loved them...