travelingidahogirl

Castelvecchio

We went to Verona yesterday for the first time (other than driving past on the Autostrada). It’s been rainy and cold here (it actually snowed about 4 inches on Monday), so I wanted something that would mostly be indoors.

Verona has a small castle called Castelvecchio (old castle) built in the mid-1300’s by the Scaligeri family. Now it houses a museum. You can walk around the grounds for free, but your museum admission also allows you to walk around the top battlements, which is pretty cool.

The museum was low-key. Lots of stone statues, tablets, Middle Ages and Renaissance paintings, and some medieval weaponry (T’s favorite things, of course). Hubby took a picture of just about every piece of art in the building, while I answered T’s questions of “What are they doing?” with either “They’re admiring baby Jesus” or “They’re taking care of Jesus’ body.” I mean there were a lot of manger/Madonna and cross scenes. A few other things—portraits, John the Baptist’s head on a platter, a couple still lifes. T was very good though. It was helpful that there were very few other visitors, I think.

After Castelvecchio, we walked a little in Piazza Bra, the main piazza by the Arena, which we will have to visit another time. But one thing that was neat was this huge arch coming out of the Arena and ending with a star. It is called the Christmas Star, and because I’ve seen several pictures of the piazza without it, I guess it is only out during this time of year? I’m not certain about that. Lots of kids were playing all around it and T. enjoyed it, too.

posted by travelingidahogirl @ 5:29 PM