Oh yeah! Ferrara!

After the harrowing experience on the stairs in the tower of the castle, I was ready to see something pretty dammit! No more ugly stone walls and boring information about the Estes family. (It wasn’t really boring. I just needed that for comedic effect.)

When we go to museums that are housed in old palazzos, spend more time looking up than I do looking anywhere else. The ceilings are usually covered with these amazing frescos. (I always think of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapels. Lying on his back, paint dripping in his hair.) Well, the people in Ferrara thought of me and my neck. They had mirrors set up so you could admire to your heart’s content!

Pretty darn cool. In fact, they inspired me to create my own art:

So sue me. I thought it was pretty creative at the time!

We headed over to the chemistry department after our tour of the castle. Carlo was busy with business related to being the Chair of the Department…. Nah, he was getting interviewed by the paper and had to have his picture taken. Really!

Instead, we went to lunch with Maria Rampi, another professor at the University of Ferrara and a friend of ours. We walked to her house, taking the long scenic route along the walls.

Her directions were funny. “Walk along the wall until you get to the old chopper house, then take a left.” Chopper house? OH!! Where they cut peoples… heads… off… Eww….

Originally we were going to have lunch at her house, in her garden. Which was fine with me. Because this is her backyard:

Her house is an old vacation house from the 18th century:

She has sculptures placed around the backyard. It was Spring, and warm and there were kitties. I was THIS CLOSE to asking her if I could stay. You can see the old cemetery from her back yard too:

She said she doesn’t mind living next to the cemetery because when the angels sound their horns, she’ll at least know what is going on. Instead of lunch in her backyard, she took us to this AMAZING restaurant just down the street from her house. I would have passed it by and not given it a second look. It is called La Provvidenza. The mayor of Ferrara was having lunch there that day too!

Maria is probably still amazed that I don’t weigh as much as a house. I can’t remember the last time I ate that much food. Maria and started with the buffet; it was a mixed antipasti buffet. Grilled veggies, cheese, dried tomatoes, pretty much everything Italian. Maria stopped there. Jim and I then had pasta. I had an AMAZING pumpkin stuffed tortellini. It is the regional specialty of Ferrara. I know why. Wow. Jim had a baked macaroni pie thingy. He said it was good. Maria then ordered a plate of misto frito – mixed fried stuff. I would eat anything fried. And I think I did that day. I probably ate half of that plate. Fried orange slices. Fried cheese, fried spinach stuff, fried meat, fried bananas… All of it dusted with powdered sugar. Plus we shared a bottle of prosecco with lunch. Then we had coffee. Maria tried to get us to have gelatto but I just laughed.

Maria had to work and so we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and head out of town. I saw this sign on our way back to the hotel:

It was another reminder that we are no longer in Kansas, Toto.

We also stopped by the cathedral in Ferrara before heading out. It was quite beautiful. Since we’ve been in Italy, we’ve seen many different churches. I have to say that is was very beautiful but I don’t remember anything that really made it stand out from all of the others!

The altar:

One of the naves:

The door leading in:

I take that back – what set this one apart was that it was a functioning church. We actually were going to tour it before the amazing lunch with Maria (well, heading to the department) but when we went in, they were having a children’s mass. Kids were signing, priests were priesting and there was general religiosity going on. We left. It’s one thing to gawk at a church, it’s a whole ‘nuther thing to stare while God might be there, watching.

We went back after lunch and the festivities were over, but I did see people in confession. It was the old timey confessionals. Priest on one side of the partition and the sinner on the other side, both for the world to see. I was going to take a picture, but thought better of it.