I’ve been rather slack on my postings of what I’ve been up to, so sorry about that. Does it really surprise anybody though? (if it does, how well do you really know me? :-P jk). This might be an excuse, but we have yet to get our own internet at the apartment. Starting to wonder if we’ll actually get it before we have to head back to the states…or at least have it for long enough for it to be useful.
So to sum up what I’ve done since my last post:
June 19th: I went to Ferrara for the day and just wondered around the city. It was a quaint town, which supposedly it’s the place to be Wednesday nights for all the university students and such. Not sure if I’ll ever make it there as the last train from Ferrara back to Bologna I think is around 11pm and well the partying doesn’t start until after that. Could always just take the first train back in the morning…but that would make for a very long Thursday.
Anyways, back to talking about Ferrara itself. It was a very bike friendly town as from most of the main streets I was on there was a road, a little median to separate off a bike path and then the sidewalk. Actually most of the cities in Italy seem to be rather bike friendly...at least from my perception, although sometimes it seems a bit chaotic. I think what makes it friendly is that drivers and such are use to seeing cyclist. While in Ferrara the main museum thing I wanted to see (and did see) I don’t remember the name right now and don’t want to look it up, but it was the place that had a room that had the Zodiac signs painted all around the room. Half of them were faded and couldn’t see, but luckily mine was not :-P I did forget to try some of the bread that can only be made in Ferrara :-(
June 26/27th: I went to Milan to do a bit of sightseeing and tried to avoid doing any shopping, which didn’t really work. I did see the Duomo and climbed the stairs to the rooftop of it to get a view of Milan. It was rather amazing. Saw a lady at the top that was heat-exhaustion or something as there were firefighters or paramedics on the roof as well. Felt a little bad for them as it was quite hot and they had most of their gear on.
Near the Duomo was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where there was a tradition of spinning on the bulls balls. There are 4 coat of arms or so on the galleria floor, one of which has a bull on it. It is supposedly good luck to spin when you step on the bulls balls. Due to the number of times people have taking a spin, there is now a hole where the bulls balls used to be. I didn't take a spin myself, but had fun watching other people doing it.
I also saw Castle Sforzesco, which was pretty nice. It didn’t have as many things as I thought it would as I thought it was going to have some old armor and such. It might have somewhere, but it was either closed off when I was there or I just couldn’t find it. One exhibit they did have there was about the history of musical instruments (mainly string, but also some wind/brass instruments).
After the castle” I went to the “The Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia ‘Leonardo da Vinci’”. I mainly went just to see the Da Vinci portion of the museum. He was definitely a smart guy. They didn’t allow/want you to take any pictures though :-( I was going to try to buy a book from it, but the book/souvenir store was closed when I was there (possibly due to it being Sunday, I’m not sure).
After seeing Da Vinci I decided I could go do some more shopping, at least window shopping :-P Really didn’t buy too much as the stores I went into were the very high fashion ones (ie Armani, D&G, etc). I don’t think I had ever felt so cheap or out of place in a store before. It was an entertaining experience at the same time though. After all, I looked at a leather jacket (forget at which place) that cost 4,500 euros….which I think is probably about how much my car is worth right now, lol.
On Sunday (and possibly Saturday, I forget) quite a few of the shops closed for an hour or two in the afternoon, so I went and just relaxed in a big public park. There were quite a few people sun bathing, some playing soccer (in the shade due to the heat), few napping in the shade, and some actually running around the park.
July 2nd-4th: I was in Siena….see next blog entry as this gets a post all to itself :-P
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