Lodi (05/10/2020)

From Milan, while my brother was working, I took the chance to do some day trips, starting out with the first day visiting the city of Lodi, southeast of Milan. I took then a regional train and in less than an hour got off at the Lodi train station. From there I then started heading towards the city center, passing by the Visconti Castle, located at the southwestern end of the old town. Built during the 14th century as a defensive structure for the city on the side facing Milan, the castle is now just partially standing, with the tower from the 15th century and part of the walls still visible. Part of it is now used as a technical school and part as a police station. Not far from the castle I then reached the church of San Lorenzo, which I then proceeded to visit. Featuring a Romanesque facade and structure, its interior presented some later additions such as medieval and renaissance frescoes and baroque stuccos. After visiting the church I then continued on through the city center and reached the Porta Cremona, the last remaining of four city gates that once marked the entrances to the old town. Despite existing since the middle ages the current aspect of the gate is due to the complete refurbishment which it received in 1792. Onwards I then walked through a nice street, Via XX Settembre, which featured some beautiful palaces such as the late Baroque Palazzo Modignani, which hosted many illustrious figures, and the 15th century Renaissance one, Palazzo Mozzanica. Reaching then the northeastern end of the city I decided to cross over the bridge that crossed over the Adda river, known as the Ponte Napoleone Bonaparte. Built in 1864 it replaced an older wooden bridge that was destroyed in 1859 when the occupying Austrian troops retreated out of the city for the last time. The bridge is named after the famous general, Napoleon, due to the fact that he had fought and defeated the Austrians in 1796, liberating the city. It seems strange that he is celebrated so; he might have liberated the city from a foreign force, but his own force was foreign and consequently occupied the city just like his predecessors. I then walked back through the city, passing by the Rococo church of San Filippo which was unfortunately closed, and reached the main square, Piazza Della Vittoria. Surrounded by elegant buildings, and with porticoes around its whole perimeter, it is considered one of the prettiest squares in Italy. Among the many nice burgher houses, are the Gothic Palazzo Vistarini to the western side, the Duomo, and the Broletto to the eastern one. The Broletto, built around 1284, was and is still used as the city's administrative building. Its ancient past and architecture are only partly visible, with some interior remains and the small inner courtyard. Its main facade, on the Piazza Della Vittoria, was rebuilt in 1778 in the Neoclassical style. As mentioned, next to it, stands the beautiful Cathedral, the largest and oldest church in Lodi. Its asymmetrical facade is mostly Romanesque with a gothic main portal, a renaissance rose window and the 16th-century bell tower to the side. I then entered the building and visited its large interior. Construction of the Duomo was begun in 1158 and it facts its structure has a mainly Romanesque aspect. Mainly austere and empty it features some traces of Renaissance frescoes, some baroque altars, including the main one, and paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Particularly nice is the polyptych by Callisto Piazza depicting the Massacre of the Innocents dated 1533, and the bronze statue of Saint Bassianus of Lodi from 1284 and hung on one of the nave's main pillars. Below the church's floor is the large crypt, the oldest part of the church, which was refurbished during the 19th century. At its center is the altar which holds the remains of Saint Bassianus in a silver reliquary. After the visit to the Cathedral, I headed out through the main square, happily noticing how the sun came back to shine and continued on through the old town. I passed by the Santuario dell'Incoronata, apparently the most important and the most beautiful church in town, but found out it was closed on that day, so I just continued onwards. Reaching the eastern part of town I then came across and entered the church of San Francesco. which was built between 1280 and 1307 in a mix of Romanesque and Gothic styles. Its beautiful facade was a delight to admire and has served as a prototype for many churches built in that period in Northern Italy. Its interior was even more surprising as it featured a large part of the walls and ceilings covered in frescoes ranging from the 14th to the 18th centuries. Finally, after the visit to that last church, it was time to walk to the train station and from there take a train back to Milan. 

The Visconti castle

The church of San Lorenzo

The Renaissance Palazzo Mozzanica

Lodi's main street, Corso Umberto I, with the church of San Filippo on the right

The main square, Piazza della Vittoria, and the Cathedral

A fresco inside the Cathedral

A terracotta Pieta' inside the Cathedral cypt

The bronze statue of Saint Bassianus

The church of San Francesco

The beautiful interior of the church of San Francesco

Sulzano & Naquane Rock Drawings National Park (04/10/2020)

After flying back to Italy for a few days I decided to spend some time visiting my brother in Milan. On a Sunday we decided to head east and visit a few places which we had hoped to see for a long time. We took the chance to go there with my mother and grandmother who drove from Vicenza and met us halfway in the town of Rovato. Along with us came also our friend Marco who we met at Milan's train station. From there we then took a regional train and reach the town of Rovato where my mom and grandma picked used up to drive on towards Lake Iseo. There we reached the small town of Sulzano, located on the eastern shore of the lake. The town is now famous as in 2016 it temporarily hosted the work of land art by the artist Christo called The Floating Piers, a yellow floating pier that joined Sulzano to Monte Isola, the island in the middle of the lake. The floating pier is not there anymore, but the town itself is a nice gem on the lakeshore with a pretty old town and beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. The Monte Isola, the island, is located right in front of Sulzano. It is Italy's largest lake island and the one in Europe which reaches the highest altitude. After walking around we decided to grab a little snack and coffee at one of the small bars in the old town. Then we got back in the car and drove on to our next destination. We headed northwards and after coasting the lake reached the long Val Camonica, eventually leaving the main road and driving up a hill through a forest and stopping at the Naquane Rock Drawings National Park entrance. Here we parked the car and continued on foot, reaching then the ticket office where we bought the tickets to enter the national park. This national park is part of the larger complex of parks (8 in total) that dot the valley. In fact, the area is known for holding the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the world scattered throughout its territory. These rock drawings were made during a period of 8000 years up until the Iron Age (around the 1st millennium BC) directly on the surfaces revealed as the last glacier to form the valley retreated approximately 15,000 years ago. Due to their nature and importance, the drawings were inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage List as Italy's first site back in 1979. Nowadays between 200,000 and 300,000 drawings have been revealed and cataloged. We had decided to visit the site of Naquane due to its size and importance of the petroglyphs contained which would be a great sample to see and understand the whole topic. The park was spread out over the forest-covered hill and featured large formations of rocks where the drawings were carved. The rocks had a number and contained figures relating to different aspects of those past inhabitants' lives. Among the figures were those featuring humanoids, animals, and even mythological figures. They mostly had no chronological or logical order and most of the time are not meant to represent the figure or object faithfully but rather its idea. The most common topics are those relating to religious rites, hunting scenes, or fights. Some of the noteworthy figures included that of the God Cernunnos, an ancient Celtic deity, a running priest, a labyrinth, huts, and deer. As we walked around we admired the beautifully carved images and were glad we were the only visitors there at the time. We stayed for nearly two hours and could've stayed longer had it not been that both my mother and grandma were starting to get tired and hungry. So after leaving the site, we headed back in the car and drove to the nearby town of Capo di Ponte where we managed to find a place that had just closed but was able to make us some sandwiches. Right next to the restaurant, while my grandma and mom were resting a bit, my brother, Marco and I found out one of the other sites where the drawings are present. This one, the Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di Cemmo, consists of two large sandstone boulders right next to each other which had fallen in remote times; the inhabitants of the area then carved figures on those same stones starting from the 3rd millennium BC. After seeing the beautiful carvings, which did not require a ticket to visit as they are set in the middle of a grassy field next to the road, we then walked further uphill behind the town center. Not far ahead we then reached a nice church, the Pieve di San Siro. Built on a rocky outcrop above the town and the Oglio river it dates to the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th centuries. Unfortunately, it was closed so we could not visit its interior which surely would have been a marvel, however, we still were able to see the nicely decorated portal and the romanesque structure of the nave and bell tower from the outside. We then decided to head back and meet up with my mother and grandmother to then drive back to Rovato where we took then the train back to Milan. 

View across Lake Iseo from Sulzano

The small harbor of Sulzano

View of Peschiera Maraglio on the Monte Isola island

Rock drawings depicting warriors

A view of the rock surface where the drawings were carved

Drawings depicting animals

The drawing depicting the running priest

A view of the mountains surrounding the drawings site of Naquane

The Pieve di San Siro in Capo di Ponte

Fürstenberg & Gransee (30/09/2020)

On an abnormally warm end of September day, I decided to take a trip north of Berlin. I took an early train and reached the town of Fürstenberg; once there I then decided to walk through its small city center first. It didn't feature anything particularly interesting apart from the central main church, rebuilt during the 19th century, and the Fürstenberg Palace, a Baroque and Rococo building built during the 19th century right next to the old town. Right in front of the palace was a nice city park opening out towards the Schwedtsee, one of the three lakes that surround the town which formed by the Havel river flowing through. As I walked along the lakeside I admired the view on that nice sunny day, noticing some inhabitants taking advantage of the last warm weather by heading out with their boats or floating houses. After walking around the lake I then reached the other end of it where the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp is located. This camp was considered the largest women's concentration camp and was in function since its construction from 1939 to 1945 when the war ended. It is estimated that around 132,000 women, 20,000 men, and 1,000 adolescent and young girls were held here. Prisoners of about 40 nations were held in the camp, with the majority coming from Poland, but also the Soviet Union, Germany, and many other countries. 80% were political prisoners, while 20% were Jewish. After the war ended and the camp was closed, the grounds were then used by the Soviet military as one of their many facilities in Eastern Germany and was eventually closed and abandoned after the fall of the Wall of Berlin. Nowadays it is a memorial site and museum to remember those whose lives were lost in this dreadful place. As I went through the camp I felt a sense of unease despite the sunny and peaceful area. I then went through the former SS headquarters of the camp which has been turned into a museum and which featured detailed information on the conditions of the prisoners and their different backgrounds. The rooms were divided into topics, chronological order, and nationality. In the section on the Italian prisoners, I read that about 1,000 women were deported from Italy after the armistice of 1943, and that about 170 of them did not survive the end of the war perishing in that dreadful place. Their names were listed on a long strip of cloth and many of their photographs were hanging on the walls, some of them remember by their descendants. The most touching and shocking part of the camp was to see the crematorium built by the prisoners themselves and used by the SS to reduce the bodies of those who perished there to ash. Once I left the concentration camp, I then headed back towards the town and from there to the train station where I took a ride to the next town, Gransee. Its old town is quite large and features a medieval wall fully encircling it and built during the 14th century. At its center stands the imposing St Mary's Church, built during the 14th century in a Brick Gothic style. The interior, mostly remade in a Neogothic style during the 19th century featured a nice triumphal cross from the 1500s. After the visit to the church, I then continued on throughout the city center and reached the northern side where the former Franciscan Monastery is set, right by the town walls. Of the once-grand monastery, only the eastern wing survives to this day, part of which was used as a school until the 1960s. Nowadays it used for occasional exhibitions, and apparently, I was lucky that day as it was open. A lady was sitting right next to the entrance and allowed me to enter to see the building. Built in Gothic brick it still featured some rooms with the typical vaulted ceilings, while the rest was either remade during the following centuries or completely altered. From there I then continued on and reached the western end of the town where the Ruppiner Tor, the last remaining city gate of the medieval walls still stands. The section of walls continuing on from that spot is probably the most picturesque and I took the opportunity to take several pictures. After walking the whole perimeter of the old town it was then time to head out on foot towards the nearby village of Meseberg. To reach it, I followed a country road that winded its way through pretty fields dotted with sheep and a thick oak forest. The weather was warm enough for me to walk around which just a short sleeve t-shirt, and it nearly felt like it was still summertime. After about one hour walking I finally reached Meseberg and its elegant Baroque Schloss. Unfortunately, I only figured out once I arrived that the place could not be visited as it is the retreat of the Chancellor of Germany and the official state guest house of the German Federal Government. Thus it is surrounded by a wall and high gates and no visitor is allowed inside. Nonetheless, I still managed to admire it from the outside, by walking around its secure perimeter. The complex consists of a central manor house built in 1739 and a well-kept baroque garden around it. I then headed on to the nearby lake, the Huwenowsee, from where I could admire the palace from an even better perspective, without any walls in the way and the lake as an added scenery. It was then time for me to get going as I still had another hour's walk ahead of me to head back to Gransee. Finally, once there I reached the train station and from there took a train back to Berlin.

Houses in the old town of Fürstenberg

The city park in Fürstenberg

A boat in the Schwedtsee lake

The memorial of the Ravensbrück concentration camp

The crematorium of the camp

The grounds of the Ravensbrück concentration camp

St Mary's church in Gransee

The triumphal cross inside the church

The old town of Gransee

One of the towers and part of the medieval walls

The Ruppiner Tor

The countryside between Gransee and Meseberg

The trail around the Schloss Meseberg

View of the Schloss Meseberg

Rear view of the palace with the lake

Sheep on the way back to Gransee