This place is one of Vicenza’s big attractions (it and the Basilica, which is closed for restoration, so I don’t know when I’ll get to see it).I had walked around the courtyard earlier, back in September, and I thought then that it was pretty cool, but I had no idea.
The courtyard IS nice: a little stone pathway, benches, flowers, ivy-covered brick walls, statues (some moss-covered, but that lends to the this-has-been-around-awhile feel of the place), and a little corner balcony overlooking it all.You enter through an arch with an iron sign: “Teatro Olimpico.”Plus, you can see a castle tower right outside.
When I went inside a few weeks ago, I was initially a little disappointed.The €8 entrance fee was pretty steep compared to other sites, especially in the area.I also got the €3 audio guide, which was extremely dry—dude couldn’t have sounded less excited (main thing I got from it was the theater's association with Hercules, but don't ask me to explain it because I don't have time to google it).The first two rooms are not very exciting.They are frescoed with what looks like marble columns and stone reliefs and they have big timber beams on the roof, which are nice, but no €8 worth.
But then you go into the actual theater and you see why the steep ticket price.The wooden bench seating is very simple, but everything else in the room is magnificent.When we were there, they waited until our small group was seated and then the lights went out and music came on and there was a light show of sorts.My friend said it would probably be the closest thing to an opera she’d ever be.The “show” lasted about 8 minutes.Then the lights came on and we were free to walk around and try to take it all in.
The stage itself is obviously the main focus.Or rather, the backdrop.It is a large wall with three entry points.The wall is pillared with statues in niches—it looks like marble, but Rick Steves says it’s wood and stucco.The coolest thing is behind the wall.Through the main center archway, and the two smaller entry points on either side, we see streets that go off into the distance.Along the streets are more buildings, with more statues.It looks like an entire city is right there.It is a perspective trick, but the main street really does go back 40 feet.
All around the bench seating is a colonnade topped with more statues and the ceiling is painted with blue sky and clouds.It really gives you the feeling of an outdoor amphitheater.It also was cold in there, but I don’t know if that was a design choice.This is Andrea Palladio’s design, but he died before it was built.Palladio, as I think I’ve mentioned, Vicenza’s pride and joy, was THE architect of his day (1500’s).He was all into classical Roman style.Hence the column multitude.
Anyway, I’m not doing the place justice.Neither do my pictures since a flash was not allowed (but at least they allow something).I still think the entry price is expensive—you really can’t spend more than 30 or 40 minutes in there.So, like when the in-laws come, we’ll take them to see it, but I think I’ll send Hubby in with them (he hasn’t been inside yet) and save my money.
Anyone who visits Venice has probably gone into St. Mark’s Basilica—it is surely Venice’s top sight. The huge, multi-domed structure dominates Piazza San Marco. This place gives a whole new meaning to “over-the-top.” The front of the building has dozens of columns (on top of columns) of varying colors of marble—grey, green, purple, pink, white. Apparently, merchants from around the world just brought back columns from wherever. This place wasn’t concerned with consistency. Or theft.
Rick Steves calls the basilica “a kind of architectural Venetian trophy chest” because so much of the place is built with stuff taken from other places. The bronze horses that look out from the balcony were stolen from Constantinople during 4th crusade. The church has a Treasury which is filled with stolen booty. The golden altarpiece (which requires €2 to see) is covered in pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, and blue enamel taken, once again, from Constantinople. The entire reason for the building of the church is a result of a stolen saint—or his bones. The church’s namesake, St. Mark (you know, he of the Gospel of Mark) is said to be buried here—after his body was stolen from Egypt in 828 (not sure how it got to Egypt, but apparently early Christians felt that whole “Thou shalt not steal” commandment didn’t really apply if the owners were of another faith). By the way, I just learned that my favorite winged lion of the Veneto region is St. Mark’s symbol.
Back to the church façade: All across the top of the roof-line are pointy spires; statues of saints, cherubs, and angels (with St. Mark at the center, tippy-top); and leafy ornamentation—seriously, there is no room for anything else to be crammed in on this roof-line. Each domed archway is filled with an elaborate mosaic (more of those on the second level). Over the center door, the arch is carved with a variety of marble reliefs. It is pretty colorful.
As magnificent as the exterior is, it really does little to prepare you for when you step inside. Your eyes are bombarded with gold, primarily from the entire ceiling covered in mosaic. (Picture-taking is not allowed inside—although it didn’t seem strictly enforced as I saw several people openly taking pictures and even more doing so more slyly. I resisted the urge—blame my parents for the whole raising-their-children-to-follow-the-rules thing. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably be a rule-breaker next time I visit….)
This Basilica was started in 1063—the first one burned. I don’t know a date for when it was considered finished, but they kept adding to it over the next six centuries. When you look up, you can see why it took so long. I cannot imagine how many people, over the years, it would take to arrange gold flecks, bronze pieces, and precious stones into a picture and then glue them up forty or fifty feet off the ground. I could stand to come back over and over again to take in one or two designs at a time (entry to just the church part is free, so if the line isn’t too long, I’ll do it—I’ve been inside three times already) because it is too overwhelming to try to take it all in at once (not to mention neck-wrenching).
The floors are also designed in a variety of mosaics, this time made from marble. And then, of course, each marble pillar is carved, statues of the Christ’s disciples line the entry to the high altar, and probably a whole heck of a lot more is worth examining that I’ve yet to notice.
Upstairs is the Basilica museum (costs €4). The coolest thing about this is that you can walk outside onto the balcony overlooking St. Mark’s Square and the lagoon. The second coolest thing about the museum is a closer view of the mosaic ceiling (but through a plexiglass-type covered view). They also have the original bronze horses inside the museum—the ones outside are replicas, to protect the originals.
Personally, I like a simple style. I don’t like to have tons of knick-knacks on shelves (of course, my house has plenty of clutter, but that’s not a stylistic choice) or ornate furniture. Basilica San Marco didn’t pick any one style of architecture—it took something from everywhere. It is completely overwhelming, but not to be missed if you’re in the area.
In Padova (or Padua, as we’d call it in the States, although I don’t know why—actually, I don’t understand why the English names of cities should be at all different than the Italian ones.Ok, we have our own word for strawberry, but why do we need to rename their cities?), a small 12th century church exists as an excuse for one huge fresco.Actually, it has a whole series of the paintings, but the entirety of the inside is painted.The artist Giotto apparently spent 20 months working on it.
I guess it is called a chapel rather than a church because of its small size.Seeing it from the outside, you’d not think much of it, especially around here where every other church is very ornate.The Scrovegni is plain and simple (a little tall and skinny) from the outside.But once you get inside…WHAMO.It is basically one long room.The two long walls are basically divided into four rows.Starting on one side, the top row tells the story of Mary’s parents (Joachim & Anna—did I ever know that?I don’t think so).The top row of the other side has panels of Mary’s life.The two middle rows on each side tell of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.The bottom rows—well, let me come back to those.At the end of the room—the wall at the end, between the two long walls—is a huge painting of The Last Judgment.On the top and left hand side of the painting, we see heaven and people entering heaven.To be honest, I didn’t look too closely at that part (plus, it was the most damaged).Because the right hand bottom half of the wall was Hell, and Giotto does not paint a pretty picture of it.Demons are eating--and (yes, I swear it’s true) pooping sinners (who looked quite disturbingly like babies).Others are hanging by their hair or wrists.One dude looks like his crotch is being eaten by some sort of lizard-demon.And there were lots of long objects aimed at the buttocks region of many a sinner.The bottom row of each side had simple paintings of the virtues that led to heaven (one side) and the vices that led to hell (the other).
Because the frescoes are in such a delicate condition, only 25 people are allowed to see it at a time (BOOK AHEAD).On top of that, you first have to sit in a small glass room, attached to the side of the chapel and watch a 15-minute video.This is so the humidity levels can be established (not sure what that means…?) before you go into the actual chapel. And once you go in, you only have 15 minutes to soak it up.It’s kinda crazy, but I’m glad it is still around for me to enjoy.There are some places where the painting is damaged or worn, but many of the frescoes were still popping with the color.
Oh, yea, the entire ceiling is painted blue with yellow stars.Like I said—no wall space is unpainted.
T. has lately been concerned with “who is the bad guy?” questions.He doesn’t seem to care as much about the good guys.Even when he plays Spiderman now, he says he is the bad one.While we were in the chapel, I was trying to point out things (NOT hell—Hubby had him while I studied that spot).He wanted to know “Where are the bad guys?”
“Um, well…ok, see the guy in yellow, kissing Jesus?That’s Judas.He’s kinda bad.”
“And who else?”
“Uh, well, those guys being mean to Jesus?They’re being bad.”
“And who else?”
“Oh!Those guys up there—see, they’re trying to take the babies away from the mommies?They’re bad.” (Reminder: King Herod ordered all male children be killed, trying to take out the King of the Jews.See Massacre of the Innocents)
“Why are they taking the babies?!”
Ok, so maybe this wasn’t a good one to point out to him because it clearly got his attention and we had to keep coming back to it.I wasn’t thinking about monitoring the Bible stories, like we do with the TV stories, but, duh!I probably need to.
(Ok, I couldn't take pictures inside--good thing since I'd left my camera battery plugged into the charger at home--yes, I had a battery-less camera with me. So I'm hoping the links I'm trying to include in this post work right.)
The next morning, we went to the Bargello, a sculpture museum in what looks like a little castle, but was previously a prison. I generally prefer sculpture to painting anyway, so I loved this museum. We got there around 8:30 and I think we were the second ones there. It was not at all crowded. After you pay your admittance, you step outside into the courtyard (the only place picture-taking is allowed), and there are statues all around the loggia (that’s the covered porch-like part, as I learned from a pretty DK Eyewitness Travel guide—may have learned that at one point, but it felt like new info to me when I saw it). Then inside, they had some of the more big-named artists, like Michelangelo and Donatello. Donatello’s David is the biggie, and it was incredible (and you can walk right up to it and all around it—T decided to be all independent in THAT room after I had carried/pushed him around the rest of the place, and walked all around, pausing in front of each statue—chest out so all could see his soccer shirt, of course. I was envisioning international-relations disaster caused by tripping boy—I don’t think the Italians, or anyone, would consider him so cute anymore if he tipped over a Donatello. –He was fine, perfectly well-behaved, a bit vain, but that doesn’t really stand out here).
But I also really liked some of the works by Giambologna and Cellini, whom I, once again, probably heard mentioned in Intro to Art, but were unfamiliar to me at the ripe old age of, well, solidly middle-age. The museum also had pieces of “the decorative arts,” plates, platters, pitchers, ivory combs, jewelry, etc., which I’m sure were impressive—they were, I saw them—but I wouldn’t have gone there to see a room full of tableware. This was my favorite place we visited. Cool building, no crowds, spectacular sculpture, and not too much of it.
And doesn't this picture just rock? Wish I could take credit for it, but as with the majority of outing-pics, Hubby is the photographer.
We checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the train station, and dumped our luggage in the car. We thought we’d try to get in one more place, hell, why not the Accademia, but as we were walking there, we felt a few snowflakes and knew we didn’t want to be driving back in the dark AND in the snow. Those hills of Tuscany? Yea, big hills.
It was a good call. The trip from Florence to Bologna was non-stop snow, real flakes. Roads weren’t awful because it was pretty much bumper-to bumper traffic. But it was the only time the Italians didn’t drive aggressively. I think I got up to 45 miles per hour in one of the long tunnels, but other than that, it was about 30 until we broke out at Bologna and the snow let up.
After we left the Uffizi, it was nearly dark.We headed to Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge—seriously, I don’t think the Italians have anything on us as far as naming places, but they do, somehow, sound more impressive in Italian; maybe not to them?), a famous bridge over the Arno River.There are small shops along the bridge, kind of like the Rialto Bridge in Venice.We didn’t go into any shops, just looked through the windows—primarily jewelry shops.The place was pretty happening—lots more people in the streets—more Italians—now that it was dark.I don’t know if they always have lights strung up or if it is a Christmas thing, but it was pretty and made the cold more tolerable.
We made our way back up towards the duomo, but made a stop at a shop selling shirts because T had been begging for an Italian soccer shirt for about a half hour.My mistake.The first time he said he wanted a blue shirt, I told him, “No—that’s an Italian soccer team shirt and we don’t know which teams are good.” (Plus, people here get passionate about their football teams, and I didn’t want to piss anybody off.)As soon as he heard SOCCER shirt, he absolutely HAD to have one, as he has been told that he can play soccer when he is older.It turned out fine—he got his blue #5 Italia shirt (the name on the back is Cannavaro, if that means anything to any of you), which he promptly put on over his long sleeve shirt.Later at the restaurant, his little chest was pushed out as soon as the coat came off.He rubbed his hands over the satiny material every time the waiter walked by, and he was given the desired “Ah, bueno, bueno” from a few people.
Before dinner, we stopped in at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, a museum right behind the Duomo, which houses some of the original art of the cathedral.We didn’t spend a lot of time here, but it was well worth the visit, if for no other reason than Michelangelo’s Pieta, his last piece—unfinished—of sculpture (I think it was his last?).It also has a scary Donatello (La Maddalena—Mary Magdalene always gets a bad rap, but yee-ouch!) and some beautiful Luca della Robbia (another new name to me) marble reliefs.
T was disappointed that none of the statues moved.
I spent the first 18 years of my life in ridiculously-small-town Idaho. Since then, I've not lived in the same town for more than three years. I didn't really intend for that to happen; it's just the way it is. I finally have more years of my life lived outside Idaho than in it. I've lived in Texas, South Korea, Georgia, Washington (state), Washington DC suburbs, and North Carolina (not necessarily in that order). Now I'm in Italy.
entrance fee was pretty steep compared to other sites, especially in the area. I also got the €3 audio
guide, which was extremely dry—dude couldn’t have sounded less excited (main thing I got from it was the theater's association with Hercules, but don't ask me to explain it because I don't have time to google it). The first two rooms are not very exciting. They are frescoed with what looks like marble columns and stone reliefs and they have big timber beams on the roof, which are nice, but no €8 worth.
three entry points. The wall is pillared with statues in niches—it looks like marble, but Rick Steves says it’s wood and stucco. The coolest thing is behind the wall. Through the main center archway, and the two smaller entry points on either side, we see streets that go off into the distance. Along the streets are more buildings, with more statues. It looks like an entire city is right there. It is a perspective trick, but the main street really does go back 40 feet.
All around the bench seating is a colonnade topped with more statues and the ceiling is painted with blue sky and clouds. It really gives you the feeling of an outdoor amphitheater. It also was cold in there, but I don’t know if that was a design choice. 
This is Andrea Palladio’s design, but he died before it was built. Palladio, as I think I’ve mentioned, Vicenza’s pride and joy, was THE architect of his day (1500’s). He was all into classical Roman style. Hence the column multitude.
