Sunday May 21, 2023
Carol does not start us off with a cooked breakfast this morning. I just can’t believe it. Take a girl to Italy and this is what you get. I hope you know I am kidding but more importantly, I hope she knows. I awake from my bad dream to the smell of breakfast cooking. Carol did make breakfast because when we returned last evening, the owners had filled our pantry with eggs, fruit, bread, milk, coffee, and a large assortment of other items so we eat breakfast in. Today we are going to the Certosa di Pavia which is not actually in Pavia. We start with a morning warm up walk to the train station to catch the 0839 train and the 8 minute ride to where the Certosa is. Getting off the train, it is not long where a break in the walls of the monastery so we get a nice picture. It is about a mile long walk along the walls of the monastery to the entrance on the opposite side of where the train station is. The grounds are huge.
The Certosa opens at 0900 and is free, but we read that if you are at an iron gate , before 1000, a monk will come out and give a tour at 1000 sharp. So we decided to get here at opening to look around and wait for the tour. When we get to the entrance and go inside, we are greeted by a lovely garden area with the museum on the right and the church in front. We decide to go into the church first. It is very nice inside and sure enough, there is an iron gate at the front that does no allow you to go deeper inside. We can see a dome from the gate and also a 3D painting of a monk in a window above, keeping an eye on us. Interestingly, there is a group (maybe a small tour group) waiting by the iron gates and one of them is talking to a man behind it. It sounds to me like there may be a tour at 0930 if I understood the Italian conversation.
While we wait to see, here is some history. The Certosa di Pavia was founded as a Carthusian Monastery in the 14th century. The first stone was placed by Gian Galeazzo Visconti but it took another two centuries to complete. The monastery represents a mix of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. It is inhabited today by an order of Cistercian monks who maintain a vow of silence. I think there is only between six and ten of them. At 0930, a monk shows up and the other man opens the gate and in we go. Now we are really glad we got here early. The tour is in Italian so we are not sure how much we will glean from it but it allows us to see some more of the monastery.
Behind the iron gates, we see a beautiful side chapel to start. I guess the vow of silence does not apply to giving the tour. It is obvious the monk does not socialize much as his tone and voice is very robotic as if he was programmed exactly what to say and how to say it. We soon learn that the vow of silence applies to us behind the gates as when someone speaks he says silencio. We see the tomb of Ludovico Sforza, the 7th Duke of Milan and his wife Beatrice d’Este (remember them from Ferrara). The sculptures on the tomb were carried here in 1564 from the Milanese church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. There are also beautiful sculptures and paintings in a side chapel.
After that we enter one of the cloisters where I totally lose what he is trying to say. He silences another person in the crowd and proceeds with the narrative. It really is a beautiful place and is hard to imagine that only a handful of monks live here as the grounds and buildings are very large. In another very large cloister, we get to tour the old monks quarters with each monk having their own simple room. After that one last fresco is looking down on you and shushing you with his finger over his mouth. This is the sound of silence. We are done with the tour and check out the museum. It is OK but does have one nice painting of the whole Certosa complex. A couple more pictures and we walk back to the station for our train back to Pavia. Without the tour, even though the exterior of the church is beautiful, I am not sure it would be worth the journey so we are glad we were able to catch it.
Back in Pavia, we walk the opposite way from town to find a path that will take us to the river and back along it to the covered bridge. We walk about .8 miles and then turn into a side road and find a path to the river. It is nice and shaded which is good as it is getting warm out. After about a half mile or so a girl comes running the other way and when she passes by says something that I think is the bridge is out. Not knowing the path or if what I heard is correct, we walk on. In .2 we come to a bridge over a tributary of the river and it has police tape across it and four cops and another guy looking at one of the wooden planks on it. I figure if they can stand there, surely we can walk across, but not wanting to spend time in a Pavian jail, I do not cross the line. I do try to get someone’s attention and finally a policeman comes over and says we can go. We climb over the tape and start across when another cop sees us and starts to tell us to go back. Maybe letting us on was a setup and we will have to pay a fine. No, we are saved by cop number one who tells number two it is alright. We do not fall through the planks into the den of crocodiles below and continue our walk. We can now see the covered bridge and get a nice picture where an American flag is flying next to an Italian one. I don’t know why, but it is nice to see old glory. It is getting pretty hot so we cross the bridge and return to our place for some rest and relaxation.
It felt good to just hang out for a few hours. Dinner is not too far up the street at a local place recommended by our hosts. We have a reservation at 1930 and only have to leave at 1925, it is that close. We arrive and are seated. Our waiter is nice and goes over the menu telling us what everything is in English. We settle on a pasta dish, a risotto dish and a beef dish. Everything is very good, but the beef cheeks with carmelized onions is the clear winner. We also had some grilled vegetables with it so we could get a few greens in. It was a very nice meal and even though we are close by we do about a mile walk afterwards to help us digest. Just loving life in Italy.
Expenses Train to Certosa di Pavia RT 7.60E Dinner at Antica Trattoria Ferrari 71.50E (Guancia beef cheeks) Apartment BNB Cube 90E Walked 8.7 Miles
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