Yesterday, Saturday, was our regular P Day. It was also general conference, but the first session didn't start here until 6 pm. During the morning we drove, in our car, with the Salatinos. We drove about 20 minutes south to the Cetosa di Pavia, which is one of the largest monasteries in Italy. It is in a very small town about 10 minutes north of Pavia, which is an old city, actually an old Roman city, about 30 miles south of us. Anyway, the Certosa was started in about 1000 ad and is still, sort of, being used, although I suspect there are only about 4 or 5 monks there, because that is all we saw. The one who took us on a tour was from Ethopia and spoke very good Italian. We had to park a long way from the front gate, and walk. The only thing we had to pay for is parking, which was 4 euros for the 2 hours we were there. But we were not allowed to take pictures in the very large, very old, and beautiful church. One of the altars was about 12 feet high by 6 feet high and was made with ivory.
The old moat around the monastary, although we didn't see any crocodille
Past the inner courtyard is a large porch, with the church in the background. The church is very large and very impressive, but they forbid me from taking any pictures inside. In fact, I was yelled at by an old monk, when he saw me take a pix on the outside. I may have been drawn and quartered if I would have use the camera inside. Some other people were taking pix when he wasn't looking, but I tried to be obedient.
Entrance to the university of Pavia, one of the oldest in the world, started in the 1300s. During the 1800s one of the professors of physics was a Dr. Volta, after whom the volt (a measure of electricity) was named.
Large doors into large houses, (you could drive your horse inside) but the small doors are for people to enter through. As you can see, they were made small to make it more difficult to enter.
The duomo dome, one of the largest in Italy (only one larger is the dome on St. Peter's in Rome) in the background, we didn't go inside, because it was closed for the afternoon, it closes about 11:30 (for liesurly lunch and nap) and opens again at 3:30 pm.
Some of the streets in Pavia are pretty narrow.
Outside of the castle walls, it would probably take about a half hour to walk all around it. It was a city in and of itself.
We went back home and watched the Saturday morning session of conference, which started at 6 pm, on the large TV in the president's house across the street from the mission office. We watched the priesthood session at our desks in the mission office from our computers, which worked well too. Sister Dibb made spaghetti and salad, with gelato and cookies Myrna quickly made for dinner. The Salatini ate with us. President Dibb's brother married President Monson's daughter, who we saw with him at conference. Her husband sat on the front row.
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