Correggio in Parma and Lou Reed in Milan

Following my mother's recommendation, I went to see a beautiful exhibition of the works of Antonio Allegri, better known as Correggio, in Parma yesterday. My mom had read an article on this exhibition in the Herald Tribune and sent me off to see it. I hadn't heard of Correggio before nor been to Parma so I decided to take care of the two things together (the picture on the left is of Piazza Garibaldi in Parma with two sun dials on the walls of the building in the background).

The exhibition is a gathering of approx. 30 of Correggio's works, who lived and worked in Parma during the beginning of the 16th century. He is the most prominent representative of the Parma school of Italian Renaissance. His pictures are sensuous, colorful and somewhat daring. Though many of his works focus on religious themes, they are revolutionary in their humanity and naturalness.

What was especially nice in Parma was the chance to see, in addition to the works exhibited in the Palazzo della Pilotta, Corregio's frescoes made for the cupolas of the Cathedral in Parma and for the Church of San Giovanni. It is possible to go up close to the frescoes on the ceiling - using a special staircase built in the middle of the churches. The frescoes - of the Assumption of the Virgin and the rising to the heavens of San Giovanni (il Transito di San Giovanni) are lovely.

Here are two pictures I took of the frescoes (if you click on the pictures you can see them enlarged, or go to the other links I added to this post for better viewing of Correggio's work, by the way, the picture on the right was not eaten by a worm - it's one of the churches' windows...):

Parma is a very pleasant city and easily reached from Milan by train. I highly recommend anyone who can - to go there before the end of Jan. 2009, so you get a chance to see this very interesting and beautiful exhibition.

During the month of Sep. I had a chance to hear some good classical music - the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra playing Dvork's Symphony no. 9 (from the New World), the London Symphony Orchestra (playing Prokofiev), Ute Lemper singing Kurt Weill and some nice pieces of Mozart played by a young German orchestra - within the framework of the MITO Festival. Performances were held in Milan and Torino - excellent quality at very good prices (this is the 2nd year of the festival).

The one big disappointment was the "performance" of Lou Reed in this festival. The program said that he will be performing the Song of Songs with Laurie Anderson. What we thought was that he would somehow sing this, which sounded at least interesting. What happened in fact was that there were two parts to the concert - in the first some musicians played something that sounded like jazz which wasn't too bad. Then Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and 5 a cappella singers came on. The singers made noises for half an hour which sounded like chalk grating on a blackboard and Reed and Anderson simply read the Song of Songs. They did not sing A NOTE. Such a disappointment. The place was packed because people were hoping to hear Lou Reed sing old material or new material - no such luck, just a bad and boring performance. I understand that those of you who went to hear Paul McCartney in Israel had a much better time and enjoyed the performance. If I were Lou Reed I'd just excuse myself, instead of taking part in this terrible performance, which sounded bad and was not even interesting. Better luck next time.

And so, a year has passed for me here and it's Rosh Hashana again. I'd like to end by wishing you all a Happy New Year. A year filled with health, happiness and good things. Shana Tova!

Rovereto and Trento

This is going to be a short post to write briefly about a lovely trip I took last weekend to Rovereto and Trento in the Trentino region (north of Verona).

My Italian teacher discovered that the Israel Museum is lending the MART museum in Rovereto its Impressionist and Post Impressionist collection for a few months. Since I'd heard that the MART is a very good contemporary art museum worth the detour to Rovereto and since I love impressionist art I decided to try and get an invitation for the opening. I managed this but in the process I turned out to be the embassy's representative at the event - which meant I really had to go. The museum is interesting not only because of the exhibits inside but also because of its architectural structure. It was designed by Mario Botta who was also the architect behind the restructuring of the La Scala opera house in Milan, the Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center in Tel Aviv and the Kyobo Tower in Seoul among others.

I tried to catch the train over there but I just didn't have enough time to get to the train station, so I ended up taking my car (for the first time for a long trip outside of Milan). The drive out there was OK, after turning north - it becomes really beautiful as you begin driving through the Dolomites with the Adige river flowing nearby. I got there just in time and just about had enough time to check into my hotel and change. The museum was packed with people and it was nice to see the familiar pictures in their new temporary home - it's funny how you see the pictures differently when they hang somewhere else, having the same effect like when you move pictures at home. They seem somehow new or different. Strangely enough, I discovered I knew the Israeli curator of the exhibition - we studied together at the university.

Aside from this exhibition the museum has some interesting permanent collections (and I'm not always a fan of these types of things). I highly recommend going there, and also visiting the town, which is very pleasant.

I stayed overnight in a nice hotel called Leon D'Oro (a four star hotel).

The next day I drove north to Trento - the main town in the region.

They had some kind of medieval fair going on. It's funny how in the right atmosphere and with the "right kind" of structures around - people can look like they're from the middle ages just by changing their clothes - they were doing all kinds of things the very old way - weaving, milling, making silk, etc. Below you can see two examples of this:

From the Duomo Square I walked to the Castello del Buonconsiglio (the Castle of Good Counsel) where they had an interesting exhibition of prints by Rembrandt.

The Council of Trent which is considered one of the most important councils in the history of the Catholic Church, convened there in 1545. This Council gave rise to the Counter Reformation in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.

The castle is well worth a visit as is the whole town - it has a very medieval feel to it which is nice, in addition to being very pleasant. As always with me, I like it when there are mountains around - and both Trento and Rovereto are well situated that way.


I leave you with two pictures from Trento - the one on the left taken from the Castello and the one on the right taken on the street - one of many houses with an old feel to it.

I didn't really take enough pictures there to give you a feeling of what the two towns are like but I want to say again that I had a great time over there and think it's an excellent place to spend some time in - and to use as a base for touring the area from.

Cinque Terre

Last weekend I went with a friend - Raimonda - to visit the Cinque Terre - 5 beautiful villages "clinging defiantly to the steep coastline west of La Spezia" to quote the Lonely Planet. The place is a UNESCO world heritage site - deservedly so. It's located on the west coast of Italy along the Riviera di Levante south east of Genova.

We wanted to stay in one of the villages but even though it was already the first weekend in Sep. there was not a room to be had. So we ended up staying in La Spezia. La Spezia's main claim to fame is its naval base built in the 1860s and its arsenal which was established there after WWII. The town has a completely different "feel" to it compared with Milan (the more I visit places here in Italy the more I come to the realization that Milan is completely different from any other place here - the other places, including Rome, have a more easy going feel to them, whereas Milan always strikes me as this very serious place, where people are busy going places, and please not to stand in their way...). Being a seaside town it's more relaxed and much more humid...

We took a B&B over there. To look at the web site of this place you'd think it's this wonderful place on the seaside (very good photography...). In fact, it's in building in a quiet square off the Via Prione, the main street of downtown La Spezia. On the left you can see what our room actually looked like. The funny thing was that we had asked for two single beds but it turned out that we got one double bed instead. It reminded me of a similar incident during my first visit to Italy, in Florence where Hagit and I ended up in a double bed with the added value of a dent in the middle so we kept rolling into each other during the night.... But the place was clean and pleasant and the owner very obliging and friendly, serving us this wonderful breakfast, telling us about his adventures and complaining about the Ligurians (La Spezia is in the Liguria and a favorite pastime of Italians is to complain about people from other regions - the owner of this B&B comes from Istria).

We took the battello (a ferry) from La Spezia to the Cinque Terre. Approaching the villages from the sea is a lovely experience. The first stop was in Porto Venere which isn't strictly part of the 5 villages making up the Cinque Terre but I found it to be the nicest (and least crowded) of the little villages we visited. I think if I go there again (or I should probably say when) I'd like to try and stay there. See below two pictures I took - one of the houses along the seashore and the other of the Chiesa di San Pietro.

We then proceeded on to visit the Cinque Terre villages. These can also be reached by train but we felt it was nicer to reach them from the sea. When the sea isn't too bumpy - I think it's the best way to see them. We hopped from village to village spending about an hour in each. and finally walked the the famous Lovers' Lane between Manarola and Riomaggiore. Well worth the trip although very very touristic.

(you can see more pictures and also those I put here - but better quality on my Flickr account)

In the food department we had focaccia (a specialty of the region) and I bought some pesto - also reputed to be the best in Italy (I tasted it on some pasta at home - excellent...). We had a lot of fish and seafood over there (obviously). The funniest experience with that being that on one occasion we ate a huge octopus complete with all its legs and head plopped onto the plate. A bit off-putting but delicious nonetheless. on the downside I tried some cod (baccala) stew which was really too fishy for me (on the left you can see me busy eating...).

The next day - which was a Sunday - it was supposed to rain. Therefore we decided (on the recommendation of our B&B owner) to go and visit the antique market in a place called Sarzana. This turned out to be a bizzare anthropological experience. We arrived there to find out that the antique market was not there and that there isn't much to do in Sarzana, especially not on Sunday morning, except maybe do some people watching. People there are very laid back and easy going and as we were sitting in the main square of this place trying to figure out what to do we saw this woman who came down from her house to talk to her friends in her nightgown.... I thought to myself that women in Milan wouldn't be caught dead in their nightgown on the street, let alone standing in a main square like that.... We promptly left Sarzana and went instead to Lerici - a pretty seaside town not far from La Spezia where we had a great lunch (as you can see in the previous picture...).

I will end this post with a picture of one of the beaches in Lerici. You can see that the chairs are organized in straight lines along the beach. People rent their place for the entire summer - and if you're in one of the back lines, that's where you'll be the entire summer.... and there's no breaking the lines and moving forward. Everyone stays in his/her chair along the lines. I'm told that in the Italian Riviera (to the west of where we were) - the lines are even straighter and order is even more strictly observed since most of the tourists there are German.... I don't think this system would work for one minute in Israel.... I'm actually amazed that it works in Italy.