Wednesday, April 17, 2013 -- Ferrara and Vicenza

With one last short walk through the beautifully warm-hued streets of Bologna, we reclaimed our car from the garage and hit the road again.

Our first stop, less than an hour away, was Ferrara, where the civic, religious, and historic centers are all adjacent to each other.  The Este dynasty were the powers to reckon with in Ferrara, and their patronage of the arts helped make the city a mecca for writers, painters and sculptors. The municipal offices are housed in a former Este palace and its courtyard is a large, pleasant public space.  Immediately outside the courtyard is the beautiful façade of the duomo, whose interior is huge, but not particularly inspiring.  We walked through a pleasant pedestrian shopping area to the medieval quarter, with its narrow lanes, breeched by arches.  The massive Este castle -- moat, drawbridges and all – looms over all of this.  This Centro Storico is compact and largely a pedestrian zone, but we found that the enormous number of bicyclists pedaling everywhere meant that we still had to be very aware of vehicular traffic.  

Then, it was on to Vicenza, a sacred city for architects, as it is the home of so many palazzi, villas and public buildings designed by Palladio in the 16^th century.  We visited his Olympic Theater, an indoor theater modeled on Roman arenas, whose backdrop of five “streets” is renowned for its extraordinary perspective.  We strolled along Vicenza’s main street, Corso Andrea Palladio, which is lined with its namesake’s work, and then to the city’s main piazza, which is dominated by his first major work, the massive Basilica (public meeting facility) and one of his last, an unfinished loggia.  

Before leaving this quiet and orderly city, we stopped at the Santa Corona, a church built to house a thorn from the Crown of Thorns.  The altar piece, of marble mosaics, the intarsia (inlaid wood) of the choir stalls, depicting scenes of the city, and a Bellini painting of the Baptism of Christ made the small church a special place, even though its most important relic was not on view.

Today’s destination was Padova (Padua), and we arrived late in the afternoon.  Our apartment is very spacious, with a huge terrace and glass-enclosed rooftop room, and the building faces a river that encircles the old city.  We walked along the very pleasant riverfront park to find a supermarket, and then headed home for the evening.