Jan, Ginger and Brian went to Pisa, Florence and Rome for two days and got back to our apartment late Friday evening. They had a good time and saw the leaning tower, downtown Florence and Rome. Jan rode on a hop-on. hop-off bus in Rome while Ginger and Brian walked around, including the Vatican. When they returned home we had dinner. I made a lasagna and also some sausage risotto. Myrna made salad, veggies and brownies. On Saturday morning we all went to Torino with a goal of seeing two things, the Royal Palace of the Savoy family and the medieval castle on the Po River. We accomplished both goals, and had a nice time, all with good weather.
There were many royal families in Europe, including the Windsors in England, and they were famous for their intermarriages. The European family that had the longest reign of all were the Savoys from Turin (Torino) Italy. Their genealogy, which is wonderfully presented at their palace near Torino, begins about 1,000 AD and ends in 1946 (also when I began). Their palace, which was as big, maybe bigger, and as fancy as any in Europe, was abandoned before World War II. Some parts of it were used as army barracks, offices and a hospital during the war years. All of the Savoy family's furnishings and art, etc., disappeared. Over the last few decades it has been being found and restored, which they do a good job of presenting, as you go visit the massive palace, with its immense formal gardens, etc. (I think the sign said they have re-planted over 3,000 trees.) In the above pix, we are fresh in the morning, walking past a display that says "do the court at the Queen of the Venaria" with a pix of one of the Savoy queens winking. Later during the day, we saw the actual painting that was photoshopped to make the wink. What they have done to restore the palace and gardens is very impressive, and they are still working on it. I will only post a few of the many pictures I took, actually 740, to be exact.
When we got there they were finishing a foot race by age groups of kids. They were racing to this entrance to gate of the palace.
This is looking the other way, to where the kids are racing from. It is a borgo or "town" that was supported by the palace. Actually this place is not in Torino itself, it is a little out of town. We saw one little boy crying, probably because he was disappointed because he didn't do better. Kids are kids.
Although this is out of focus, it shows that we walked (we got, for free, a wheelchair for Jan) a very long way through passageways that were full of paintings of the line of the Savoys.
There was also this genealogical chart, starting with around 1,000 AD, ending about 1946. They also had a comparison chart with the other royal families of Europe, which was impressive, but my pix of it is badly out of focus, because it was so dark down there and I must have moved my hand.
This is outside one of the wings of the palace, of which there were several.
Looking toward the formal gardens, of which there were many kilometers in several directions.
This is a piece of modern art, showing the mountains in the background, foothills of the alps. This region is called Piedmont, which means the foot of the mountains.
They had lots of "before and after" pictures. This is a hallway full of boxes of stuff left over after the family was forced out during the war.
Here is Jan looking at one of the large rooms, with restored paintings. They have not yet restored many of the marble floors.
And ceilings, with restored frescoes.
They did a good job, in Italian and English, telling us what all of the rooms were.
Some of the rooms had new draperies on the walls, with art that had been brought from other places, which were originally in this palace.
This room had red draperies. This picture could be lightened with a photo enhancing program.
Jan is looking at a bed in another room, used for guests. There was a large painting on the wall to the side of the bed, which I thought was interesting.
This is what the painting was of. I do not know if it was originally there or not.
The above mentioned painting, which, again, lightens up well in Picasa.
They had a few pieces of original, or perhaps period, furniture.
Including personal grooming items, they had these in several of the many bedrooms.
I thought this was sort of weird, and took a close up to make sure I could tell what was going on.
Some guy in the process of being skinned alive. Is that what the royals like to do in their spare time.
The Savoys actually appreciated art from all over Europe.
The one described above.
A very large painting, which I thought had an interesting detail in the lower right corner.
A little eye surgery going on in the street.
The description of the above painting.
They had opened the large door to a bedroom and one could see the gate that I took the pix of, on the other side, as we entered. There was a fountain in the middle, which was spouting, but only spouted up a few feet.
In another room was a modern grand piano and this replica of a two manual harpsichord, which I played a few notes on, and it sounded like it was in tune. This must have been a music room. The room is large enough they could bring chairs in and have a concert in there, which is probably what they did centuries ago.
These are very large rooms with some fairly large paintings.
This is the original of the gal they photoshopped a blinking eye.
Another grand old dame.
And some baby ones. These are real portraits.
More bedrooms.
Bedroom furniture.
Some statuary, could have been for someone who died and is now an angel.
A clock, which was fairly large
Horse paintings, of which there were several.
With matching tables, with marble tops
This is called the Great Gallery and joined one building to another.
Again, the signage was very good, including in English.
Look out the windows and this was the view:
Down the Great Gallery was another building with more museum-like displays
Like all of the royal silverware, enough to feed the army, although I am sure sure the soldiers weren't ever invited.
The Hapsburgs were from Germany, but they intermarried with the Savoys.
Other royal jewelry boxes, etc.
Etc.
Royal watches.
A bust of Napoleon, who I don't think was a family friend.
More corridors to more buildings
On this staircase they had life size mannequins dressed in period clothing
And this led to the church, which had also been destroyed during the war, and is now being restored. . This is not a functioning church any more.
I suspect a nice pipe organ sat on this balcony above the main door, where organs are usually placed in Italian Catholic churches.
A before and after picture of the church connected to the palace.
The outside of the church, to the left, has also been restored. The door by the blue sign is the entry to the palace for tourists.
A long way back, but beautiful, to where we parked the car.
The police band, where the policemen musicians ride these white horses, was getting ready for some kind of show. They have lots of events at the palace and on the grounds, and there were a lot of people there.
To the right are Italian police horse trailers. It appears they are very nice to their horses, as these were very comfortable looking trailers.
From there we drove over to the medieval castle on the banks of the Po River in Torino. I have previously posted pictures of this castle, so I will not post many today.
W waited for our 45 minute guided tour to start. See the little boy looking up.
He was watching this squirrel. We walked closer to the path we were going to take up to the castle and there was the squirrel. The little boy reached out to pet the squirrel, and, the squirrel allowed the boy to touch its head, then it scampered off.
Jan waited at the bottom inside the castle, because of the steep stairs, but she was able to see a lot of the castle.
We were shown a room we hadn't previously seen, where the lord went in to say his morning and evening prayers, called the oratory, which was next to his bedroom.
There was more stained glass in the chapel than I remembered.
And an old illustrated book of scripture, such as they had in the medieval period.
Ye olde castle visitors.
And ye olde castle garden had been pretty much harvested from when we saw it a few months ago.
On our way out of Torino we saw this church on the hill. Actually, there was a full moon near the church, which would have made a wonderful picture a little later in the night.
We found a pizza restaurant on this street, on the way out of town.
The pizza oven, to the right behind Brian, was fired with little chunks of what looked like hardwood.
On Sunday we went to church, had dinner, a nap, and took a ride down to Pavia. We stopped at a little church on the way, where I have played the old pipe organ, which is behind the altar, a few times, but they were getting ready for a mass and a couple of ladies were practicing with an organ and a flute. The organist was not playing the old pipe organ, but was playing a little electronic, without music, so I suppose she does not read music. The music sounded good in the church, and I didn't ask to play because I didn't want to interrupt them. We then drove down and saw the Ticino River, which flows through Pavia, which has a covered bridge, which was bombed out during World War II, which has been replaced. We drove down narrow cobblestone streets through the center of the city, past the university, hoping we didn't drive through a Zona Traffica Limitata (ZTL), for which you can get a ticket (I just paid €76.10 for one today that we got last time we were in Torino), then around the Pavia Castle (it was, by then, getting dark) and then home.
On Monday we went into Milano, driving to the Rogoredo train/bus/metro station, leaving the car there. We took the Metro to the very impressive Piazza Duomo, where we take all of the new missionaries, on their first day in Italy. I hope that Jan, Ginger and Brian got a pix of them in it with their cellphones, because I didn't. We all went inside the duomo, which costs €2.
The duomo of Milano.
This gothic building is different from the baroque churches we have been seeing, it is very impressive, and very large, one of the largest in the world.
Tourists like to see this statue of a saint who was skinned alive, holding his skin over his shoulders like a shawl. Next to his skinned hand is the skin of his fingers, etc. You can also see some of the stained glass in this building. Jan said that Paul wanted to see it and her camera was not taking good pix of it, so I took a few.
This is one of the three large windows in the back of the church, behind the altar. I tried to take some individual pix of the panels, but they are up pretty high. They are all of biblical events, of which I am guessing.
This may be the presentation of Jesus, maybe for circumcision.
An angel appearing to a shepherd.
Maybe the marriage of Mary and Joseph.
The first Hail Mary.
Mary telling her cousin she is pregnant.
The birth of Jesus. It is interesting that it looks like little John the Baptist and his mother are there.
Maybe I will use this for a Christmas card.
The baptism of Jesus
Adam and Eve and snake
Cain and Abel
Perhaps God marrying Adam and Eve
I think I counted over 20 of these large stained glass windows, each with around 100 panels, which appear to be about 4 feet by 6 feet in size.
This is either a copy or the original of the Mary on the highest pinnacle of the duomo, the equivalent of an Angel Moroni. I believe she is gilded, or gold covered.
This is looking from the back to the front of the middle of the duomo. There are many chapels on both sides.
This is on the left side of the duomo, showing a small pipe organ.
An old priest walked past us on his way to work.
Jan and I walked out together while Brian and Ginger and Myrna went to see some sights within walking distance, including the church decorated human bones.
We all agreed to meet at the nearby Galleria, the world's oldest, and perhaps fanciest shopping mall..
Jan and I went to the museum of the duomo, where they are displaying all of the stuff that won't fit in the duomo, or has been replaced over the centuries. We saw this very large cross, which was used for processions. This detail shows the individual jewels, etc
.
There is a lot of left over stained glass panels in the museum, and you can see the details better than in the church.
A medieval beggar, they still have them.
Signs told us what we were looking at, in English. Apparently people who wanted to make statues for the duomo had to submit terra cotta models, and they had lots of them, this is only one.
Abraham about to slay his son, stopped by an angel
There were many of the same statue, by different artists. This is Hercules and Antaeus
And lots more.
And many large tapestries, which are not in the duomo anymore.
Jesus descending from the cross, with a guy holding the holy shroud (now in Torino, perhaps)
You could get pretty close to these tapestries, so this is a detail of Christ's face in the shroud, or the cloth used to wrap Christ in for the 3 days he was in the tomb.
Paintings of models and models of paintings, and so much more we got disoriented, but they do have nice toilettes in the museum of the duomo.
So by now we were hungry, so Jan and I went to Luini's, a little hole in the wall, literally, where Fred remembers eating panzerotti (little french fried pizza turnovers) and so Jan had to have one for good old times sake. They all cost about 2.50 each.
.
Ginger, Brian and Myrna caught up with us and had their fill of them too.
Luini does not have tables and chairs, so his patrons just eat them on the side of the sidewalk,
I took his picture for Fred's sake, showing the entrance of an albergo (hotel) right next to Luini's, so when Fred goes to Milano, we can book his room at a convenient place.
And Fred, you can study the menu in advance. One sort of interesting story is that I actually bought two things at Luini's, a little pizza and a turnover. Brian was approached by a pregnant beggar woman and felt sorry for her, but didn't have any change, so he offered her his panzerotti, which she took, so I had an extra for Brian.
There are lots of famous stores nearby, including this Ferrari store, where you can buy anything Ferrari. There is also a Prada store, where they say the devil shops.
Including a Ferrari bike. I am going to use this as an example of the kind of bike that our missionaries should not buy, unless they have an extra €420, and it would probably be stolen within the day.
We went to all 8 floors of the famous Rinascente department store, Jan and Ginger actually bought things.
But not a €3,800 party dress, complete with wings.
I did break down and buy some chestnuts roasted on an open fire (it is Fall here). The give you a cute sack, with chestnuts in one side and the other is for the peels or shells, whatever they are called. They are not all that great, but interesting. I spent €5 for a sack, and Myrna, not knowing I would find them, also bought a sack of them, so we supported the chestnut industry.
This guy was posing for tourists next to the side of the duomo, but we didn't go there, thanks to telephoto.
Jan wanted to take a pix of the armed security guys, in camo, around the duomo, to show Paul, and this is the best pix I could get of them walking past. I doubt they would want to pose for pix.
These tourists were eating risotto, ravioli, spaghetti and pizza not far from Luini's. On Sunday at church, Brian learned about a Peruvian restaurant near where we go to church (our bishop is from Peru), and he wanted to go there. Brian served his mission in New Jersey, where he learned to appreciate Peruvian food, and his Spanish is still pretty good--he ordered in Spanish from the young Peruvian waiter.
Brian treated us to a wonderful Preuvian dinner. This is an appetizer, boiled potato with sauce, and another one I liked even better, with fried bananas and white Peruvian cheese.
I had beef, I can't remember its real name, and had taken a few bites before I thought to take this pix.
and Myrna had chicken, but perhaps not from Peru, as you can surmise.
We had a wonderful time with Jan, Ginger and Brian and are happy to read, from their emails today, that they got home safely.
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