SAST Wingees

Italy Moblog #6

BTW, forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry about the Raphael Section in the Sistine Chapel. We could not visit that due to lack of time. Too bad.

Our tour started today at 8am. Our starting point was at the Galleria dell’Accademia. Just when we thought we had seen it all in the Vatican Museum, Florence takes us to the next level.

Here in the Accademia, we took in the jaw-dropping David by Michelangelo. Its a 16-foot-tall imposing marble statue with remarkably accurate anatomical features down to the carotid artery in the jugular and the tendons above the knees. Later we learnt that Michelangelo dissected cadavers at the age of 16 to understand the human body intimately. This is considered to be one of the greatest sculptures of all time. He made this sculpture right after the Pieta we saw in the Vatican. He was just 26 years of age and it took him 2 years and 4 months to make this sculpture.

We also saw some incomplete works of Michelangelo including another Pieta. Apparently he made totally 4 Pietas.

There were a few other good paintings in the Academia but David makes anything else sub-par. We also saw a bronze statue of Michelangelo himself.

Then we walked through the city to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore – one of the largest churches in the world. The facade is made of pink, green and white marble. A competition was run to chose the designer for the dome. Fillippo Brunelleschi won the competition and designed the dome which is another engineering marvel. At that time to put such a large dome at that height was not considered possible. Brunelleschi invented some new techniques. First, he designed the dome in 2 layers with a gap in between which reduced the overall weight of the dome. He also used an innovative herringbone design to lay the bricks to give the structure more strength. Brunelleschi’s methods were later widely copied including at the St.Peter’s in Rome.

The inside of the dome holds Georgio Vasari’s version of the Last Judgement and is the world’s largest painting. He is one of the leading disciples of Michelangelo. The cathedral also includes a bell tower designed by Giotto – another famous renaissance artist. We’ll cover him again later.

When we got out of the Cathedral we saw the Heaven’s Doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Interestingly Ghiberti won the competition to design the doors that form the entrance to the Baptistery beating Brunelleschi. This is another fantastic work.

We then reached the Basilica of Santa Croce. At the entrance there is a huge statue of Dante (Divine Comedy fame). We talk of august presence but the inside of Santa Croce should be called super august presence. It contains the tombs of the favorite sons of Florence – Michelangelo Buonarotti, Guglielmo Marconi, Galileo Galilei, Enrico Fermi, Dante Alighieri, Nicolo Machiavelli, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gioachhino Rossini.

We lit a candle and prayed that some of the genius of these people rubs off on us all. It was time for us to start the 1pm tour of the Uffizi Gallery. This gallery is considered to be one of the first modern museums in Europe. Our guide started the tour with Giotto’s paintings which set the stage for later Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Raphael. He was the first one to give a 3D feel to the paintings. How Giotto himself became a painter is another inspiring story.

The Uffizi Gallery houses the cream of the Renaissance art. Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Da Vinci’s unfinished Adoration of the Magi, Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo, Raphael’s portrait of the Pope, Tijiano’s paintings, Caravaggio’s paintings etc. It also houses the largest collection of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings. With that our tour of Florence was complete.

We had also seen some more interesting sculptures like Giammatti’s Neptune in the Piazzas during our walks through the city. Florence is a beautiful city with the river Arno running through it. We are definitely completely overwhelmed by the sheer talent that had been assembled in Florence, Rome and the rest of Italy.

Clearly, the accomplishments of these great people puts Italy in a different league altogether. Don’t know when and where we’ll see the next assembly of such great talent.

After the tour we walked back to the hotel took some rest and went back to the city for dinner. Our guide had recommended Boldavino’s. What shall we say – it was soul food – a fitting finale to the fabulous day in Florence.

Tomorrow we’re off to Venice with a stop enroute at Verona. More to come.

Italy Moblog #5

Had to get up at 6am today in order to put the bags outside the room for them to be loaded onto the bus. After breakfast, we reached the Vatican Museum around 8.15 am.

A long line had formed at the entrance already even though the museum opening was still 30 minutes away. It was pretty cold there standing out in the open. No local entrepreneur selling coffee in sight. If someone did that, quite a killing could be made. There were souvenir vendors however.

We finally entered the Vatican Museum around 9am. We saw several rooms filled with paintings, murals, tapestries etc. We also saw a map room with maps from various periods in time. The tapestry room is maintained at a certain temperature, with no direct sunlight, and is inspected every 48 hours for mildew formation.

Some innovative techniques were on display – the 2D painting made to look 3D was fantastic. It has to be seen to be believed. They’ve actually painted the shadows that would have been there if it was truly 3D to bring about the effect in 2D. There were also several rooms containing gifts given to the Pope from different parts of the world.

Finally, we reached the place that embodies possibly the best art from the renaissance world – the Sistine Chapel. Here Michelangelo can be seen at his best. The vault is covered by Michelangelo’s depiction of the Genesis. This also includes the most famous of all – Creation of Adam – Adam lying on earth reaching out to the sky with an extended arm and God doing the same from the sky.

On one of the big walls, you can see Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. He was 60 years old when he painted this and it took him almost 4 years to do. He did it singlehandedly which is amazing. Again this painting has to be seen to be believed. When he painted the Genesis series he was not actually a painter but did it at the behest of the Pope because Raphael, the other famous painter was busy painting some other part of the Vatican.

Considering that he was a newbie, the Genesis series is an expression of pure genius. Over the years, because of the soot from the burning candles, all the paintings in the Sistine Chapel had turned black. A project to restore the paintings was done for 19 years and completed only in the year 2000. Interestingly, the Last Judgement took 12 years to restore with 15 people working, what one man did in 4 years.

Priya remarked that this is similar to software – maintenance is a lot harder than development! The Sistine Chapel also has panels painted by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli etc.

Many people wonder why the Pope who is supposed to be the owner, can’t sell all this art and erase famine from the rest of the world. Our guide said that was not possible due to a law preventing that. We left the awe-inspiring place reluctantly around 11.30 am. It will take a few days to do justice to seeing the Sistine Chapel alone. We have decided to come again to Rome and spend some quality time here. From there, we jumped on the bus and started towards Florence.

We stopped at Pisa to check out the Leaning tower of Pisa – one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. Factoid – the Pisa complex including the tower took almost 500 years to complete starting in 1100 AD. When we reached it was dusk, we barely had enough light to take some pictures. The leaning tower’s facade is still under restoration. Another little mentioned fact, the Duomo (Dome) which is nearby is also tilting a bit. So the same mistake of not realizing that there were sink holes in the soil has been committed twice in the same location – once in the tower and second in the Duomo.

Priya noticed this and asked the guide about it who confirmed. I have a picture as well. When we reached Florence it was around 8pm, in time for dinner. Some interesting facts about Florence – Amerigo Vespucci and Verrazano (of Verrazona Narrows fame) are from this area.

Tomorrow, we’ll be spending the whole day here. More to come.

Italy Moblog #4

I was too tired to write yesterday. Here’s yesterday’s account. Day started around 7.45 am after breakfast. From the tour bus, we checked out the Vittoriano again. Then we got down near the ruins of the Roman Forum.

The Roman Forum is the marketplace of the Romans. Not much of it is left of it. Some of the temples in the area have been converted to churches and for that reason are better preserved. Al though, we’ve heard about this spot a lot, nothing could prepare us for the next spot – the Colosseum.

It was built from 72AD to 79AD (right around the time Pompei was destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vezuvius) and opened to the public in 80 AD. It was built by Emperor Vespasian as a give-back to the people to compensate for his predecessor Nero’s excesses. In fact, Nero’s private pond was emptied to serve as the site for the stadium.

The Colosseum stands as the very definition of the term engineering marvel – it could seat 70, 000 people (this is not a typo) and its design is so well done that any modern day stadium adheres to the principles laid down by the Colosseum. To build something as complex as this 2000 years ago is mind-boggling.

The entrances and exits have been designed such that it could be emptied in 9-11 minutes! There was an elaborate system of ramps, pulleys and cages under the arena for managing the wild beasts that duelled with the gladiators. You can see the ruins of that system. Romans loved this gladiator stuff so much that the games were shutdown only after 100 years passed since the conversion to Christianity.

Obviously the church frowned upon this pagan practice. Then we went to the St.Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City (technically a different country with 400 residents and the smallest in the world) – the holiest church of the Christians. It was around noon time when reached there, so we waited for the Pope to come out and give his blessings.

Due to the thronging crowds (this is supposed to be off-season!) We barely managed to see the Pope’s outstretched hand from the window through which he gave his daily appearance. Once inside the Basilica, we were taken in by the sheer splendour of the mosaics, sculptures and tombs inside there. The Basilica was designed by none other than Michelangelo. The structure has served as the inspiration for the St. Paul’s in London and also our very own Capitol in Washington DC. We also saw the Bernini-designed canopy for the main altar. The highlight was Michelangelo’s Pieta (Deposition of Christ). This sculpture stirs your soul. Mary’s sad face with Christ lying in her arms is unforgettable. Michelangelo was only 25-years-old when he made this masterpiece. Apparently, people remarked that someone that young couldn’t have created such an emotion-laden sculpture. Upon hearing this, Michelangelo carved his name on to the ribbon on Mary’s chest overnight.

We then came back to the hotel, took some rest and then started on the walking tour of Rome around 3.30PM. We walked through the Spanish Steps, saw the Senate, Parliament and some old temples converted to offices in use currently etc. We then reached the next highlight of Rome – the Pantheon. This was built around 120 AD by Hadrian and has been modified several times. But the domed structure – the largest masonry dome in the world (as of 1960) is another engineering marvel. The Pantheon like other Pagan temples has also been converted to a church and also serves as a repository of the tombs of Raphael, Vittorio Emanuel II (first king of unified Italy), Umberto I (another king) etc. Interestingly the eye of the dome is open to the sky and has always been that way.

The walking tour culminated at the Piazza Navona which contains the famous Fountain of Four Rivers (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi) designed by Bernini. The 4 rivers representing the 4 continents known at that time – Nile from Egypt/Africa, Danube from Europe, Ganges from India/Asia and Rio de Platta from South America. Throughout the tour, we were amazed at the sheer number of people everywhere. We also passed through what’s known as the Fifth Avenue of Rome – filled with designer stores like Armani, Versace and others. Many people also said that it was one of the coldest days they’ve seen in Rome. It was actually quite bearable with a jacket, hood and gloves on.

Our guide was good, but this whole Spanish steps is vastly over-rated and could have been skipped. Given a chance, we would go straight to the Pantheon, spend some quality time there, then walk to the Piazza Navona and end it there.

We finished the day with a 5-course dinner at a local restaurant. The Tiramisu we had for dessert – very light and fluffy, is a world apart from the sugary sweet ones we have in the US.

I had mentioned earlier that Rome reminded me of Athens. I take that back. Rome is quite different and is more beautiful. More to come.

Italy Moblog #3

Got up at 7am today. Had a leisurely breakfast and checked out of Hotel Caprice (good riddance). We needed something to do for the day. Priya Raju looked up the Fodor’s we brought with us and decided that we shall go to Villa Borghese.

We walked to the Villa and after a couple of mis-steps and some guidance from some friendly Italian, we reached the villa. The Italian lady who helped us spoke Italian and we spoke English, but somehow we understood the directions. Don’t believe it if someone says all of us should speak the same language (Ha).

Fodor’s has named the Villa one of the top 5 reasons for visiting Rome and it more than exceeded the hype. The Villa is set on a sprawling campus with lush greenery and is sometimes called the Central Park of Rome. The main attraction though is the art collection “Galleria Borghese” of Cardinal Scipione Borghese. There are art collections and then there is the Borghese collection. A typical collection has a few good ones and several so-so ones. Never have we seen a collection almost entirely filled with master pieces.

Got exposed to Bernini’s sculptures – considered to be the originator of Italian Baroque style. The Apollo/Daphne or the David aiming his slingshot will remain etched in our memories. Once you complete the ground floor where all the sculpture is kept, you are already overwhelmed. But it still didn’t prepare us for the picture gallery studded with even more master pieces.

Raphael’s Deposition of Christ gave me the goosebumps. Wow! There were Caravaggios, Titians, Rubens and others. It was 1pm by the time we finished.

We had already decided that we’ll go to Campo De Fiori to have lunch. Fodor’s had said this is the best place to have Pizza. We took a cab to the place and peeped into a few restaurants and selected one of them. We sat in the gazebo but this time it was a tent style as opposed to the glass covered ones we encountered on day #1. I ordered a pizza with cheese, peppers and tomatoes and Priya ordered a gnocchi.

The pizza came out and the smell of it fresh from the wood-burning oven took our senses. The crust was thin, not too much cheese with flavorful tomatoes and peppers. The taste was out of the world. Sorry Lombardi’s, even you can’t hold a candle to this one. (Lombardi’s is considered by many to be the best pizza in the USA).

We were done by 3.30 PM and we decided to stroll a bit. On our way to Campo De Fiori, we spotted a fantastic-looking monument and Priya wanted to see if we can walk to it. As we walked we stumbled upon the ruins of the Largo Di Torre Argentina. We could spot some broken Roman columns, stair ways etc. It turns out Julius Caesar was assassinated in the year 44 BC in that very same place. Everyone says Rome is filled with history. Now I really believe it. We walked further and we managed to reach the fantastic-looking monument. It is the Vittoriano – a monument in honor of Vittorio Emanuele II – the first king of Italy after the unification of Italy.

Its made of marble and a very very grand design. It also houses the eternal flame of the tomb of the unknown soldier. Got some good pictures and then walked to the nearby Campidoglio, another grand monument, which was built by Michelangelo at the behest of Pope Paul III. It also houses the Musei Capitolini (Capital Museum) which we couldn’t check out. Maybe if we get some time during the tour.

It was 4.45PM and it was time for our 5PM meeting with the tour director. We rushed to Hotel Albani on Via Adda. Our tour officially started today. We had a meeting with the tour director followed by a welcome dinner at a fine Italian restaurant. The vegetarian fare was pretty good but not as good as the one we ate on day #1. Hotel Albani is built in a modernist-theme with the rooms having plenty of pastel colors. But its an extremely good hotel in stark contrast to Hotel Caprice.

Tomorrow we are going to tour St. Peter’s Basilica. Can’t wait. More to come.

Italy Moblog #2 – Naples/Pompei

Got up at the crack of dawn to be ready for the tour pickup at 6.45 am. The pickup came at 7.15 am. I’m beginning to think there is an Italian Stretchable Time like our own Indian Stretchable Time.

Naples/Pompei is about 155 miles from Rome. It took approximately 2.5 hours with a pit stop at a roadside cafeteria. Naples was founded by the Greek as Neo Polis (“new city”). Its a beautiful port town with an ancient castle on the waterfront. The hotels and other waterfront properties give it a unique look – got some nice pictures.

Reached the Pompei ruins at around noon after a quick lunch at a local restaurant. Pompei was founded sometime around 7th century BC. In its hey days it was an important trading center. Pompei actually means trading center.

Our guide took us around Pompei showing us the ruins and telling us about the history as well. In AD 79, nearby Mt. Vezuvius erupted and the dust buried Pompei. Thousands of people died. Famous historian Pliny the Elder perished in this tragedy. Pliny the Younger survived and much of our knowledge of Pompei was obtained from his writings.

In the year 1600 AD, the ruins at Pompei were discovered accidentally. Maybe because it was buried in volcanic dust Pompei is remarkably well-preserved. We saw a temple of Apollo/Diana from the Greek period dated to 600 BC.

Some of the other interesting things we saw:

1. A typical Pompei home had an inner courtyard around which the bedroom and other rooms were laid out. The inner courtyard called impluvium collected the rain water and drained it through an under ground cistern. I was reminded of the Nila Muttram (inner courtyard in Tamil) in my grand fatjer’s house which was constructed similarly.

2. There are some 84 fast food bars (our guide insisted on that term) in Pompei. We saw a few of them. The marble counter on which hot soups and other food was served is still intact. Apparently, it was a tradition in Pompei to eat out for lunch.

3. Extremely well-preserved Roman bath complete with a warm water and hot water bath. The place Bath in the UK has well-preserved Roman baths but are much newer than the ones in Pompei.

4. The most famous Pompei artifact – the “fugitives” – these are actual bodies of people buried in Pompei cast in plaster of paris. Archaeologists used this innovative technique to preserve the body in place without damaging it. You can even see the agonized expression on the body. Very sad.

5. We saw a house with a mosaic of a dog at the entrance with an inscription in Latin reading “Beware of Dog”. We completed the tour around 4pm, had a cup of coffee and left Pompei. On our way back, we got stuck in a traffic jam for hours together. Our tour operator told us that there was a gruesome accident in which 2 people were dead. May their souls rest in peace. Our tour operator said that people were stopping just to see what was going on, further slowing the traffic!

The tour bus crawled at a snail’s pace for hours. It took us almost 6 hours to reach our hotel back. Tomorrow we plan to not do anything hectic – just roam in Rome (Ha). More to come tomorrow.