Tag: travel photography

Postcard from Parma, Italy: A Cathedral packed with artistic distractions

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Completed in 1530, “The Assumption of the Virgin” rising high, higher up than this photo, up above in the cupola in the Cathedral in Parma attracts great attention. The Renaissance fresco is the work of Antonio da Correggio  (1489-1534), the pride of Parma, aside from meat and cheese. But there is so much distracting art in this cathedral, we ended up only with this image capturing a portion of two of the bottom corners of the star of the show.

The massive façade of the cathedral appears awkwardly dwarfed by a single tower, but this certainly was not the original plan. Atop an early Christian crypt, construction began in 1059. Following its consecration, the cathedral served the people of Parma only a decade before many of its walls came tumbling down in an earthquake in 1117.

The “new” façade, completed in 1178, presumably has thicker walls. The single Gothic belfry was added a century later. The planned twin tower never arrived.

 

Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: Waving ciao for now….

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Rounding up the final shots from our pleasant stay in Ferrara, one of the most comfortable places I’ve ever visited….

Families were celebrating university graduations, the seniors sporting laurel crowns as they paraded through town. Some groups were more dignified than others. Food costumes seemed popular for grads, as evidenced here by the fries and the wrapped pink candy.

And, in some places, cracks and tumbled-down architectural elements remind one always of past earthquakes, including a major 6.0 quake four years ago.

 

Postcard from Ferrara, Italy: Museums serving history in manageable bites

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The landmarks housing Ferrara’s museums are worth visiting for their historical and architectural merits alone. Their content provides glimpses of Italy’s past in small, easy-to-digest bites.

These photographs are from Casa Romei, built in 1445 by Giovanni Romei who married Polissena of the ruling Este family, and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, a 16th-century palace primarily showcasing artifacts from the Greco-Etruscan seaport of Spina.

My take-away lesson? The true definition of symposium gleaned from text in the archeological museum.

During all those years of working with nonprofits, why did no one ever fill me in on the proper recipe for conducting a symposium? Comfortable couches for reclining; snacks within easy reach; and, most importantly, free-flowing wine generating free-flowing conversation and exchange of ideas. I would have attended more and staged more if I had only known.

Although, maybe those years of gatherings in the over-sized corner booth of the Kangaroo Court on the River Walk were just that.

Let Paseo del Rio lore be altered henceforth. The almost mandatory, after-work, boozy gatherings of River Rats were not mere happy hours; they were lofty downtown symposia.

Dionysus certainly would hoist a glass in approval. And, as I learned this in Italy, Bacchus would as well.