I’m not a do over person, but I’ve never been able to get Mantua out of my mind. We were last here in spring 2009, after the economy crashed and flights got super cheap for a while. It was the first time we didn’t travel in winter and I remember stumbling out from looking at the Mantegna frescoes to feel—could it be—warm?
Me in Mantua, April 2009 & me in Mantua April 2023
The Mantegna’s are even better than I remembered. Once I have quicker WiFi I’ll have lots of photos.
That trip in 2009 was a personal art history world record (and that’s saying a lot coming from me). Looking at art is my favorite thing to do with HOB, and because of his Parkinson’s disease, I wasn’t sure how much longer we’ll be able to travel together so I wanted to see the ones we loved the most again together while we can.
Mantua is still extraordinarily lovely, though there seem to be so many more trip hazards (HOB is at risk for falls). I keep yelling “watch your step!” and, in theory, I made our itinerary less intense than usual. And by less intense I mean walking for 8 hour straight instead of 10 hours straight.
We are staying in apartments and I’m doing a bit of easy cooking while HOB rests. Here’s how to make lazy asparagus: find any sort of pan in your ill-equipped room and dump in asparagus. Cover with boiling water till it cools down and you’re done.
There’s this big cookie-type thing that is a kind of a fake local specialty food of Mantua. We fell for it last time and suffered through the tasteless dry clods. No local people actually eat this thing. We followed their lead and had gelato this visit.
It’s been a long time since we were last in Italy, and I was feared the worst: that their churches had finally retired the list “no scotty dogs, no cell phones from the ’90’s” signs. I’m happy to report they are alive and well. So happy I might wear a denim mini skirt while eating a hamburger just to see if the church will kick me out.
How we got to Mantua: train from Modena.
Where we slept: Residenza La Torre Price: €104 for an apartment. Recommended: yes
Picnic at the Cathedral 
I’ve never been to Mantua, and I don’t think Giuseppe Verdi ever went there either, but Claudio Monteverdi lived and worked there for over twenty years, from about 1591 to 1613. See my post Verdi and Monteverdi (https://operasandcycling.com/verdi-and-monteverdi/) and scroll down for Mantua.
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The city looks like an opera set and now there are there purple flowering vines draped all over.
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I am so very happy that you and HOB are traveling again. Wishing you a lot of fresh asparagus, beautiful art in situ, and much spring sunshine.
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Thanks for your good wishes! We are having all these in abundance and I wish the same for you.
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I see my husband also posted a comment, but here is mine: it is wonderful that you can be traveling again. We had to postpone a long-awaited April trip to Italy because of a family emergency, or we could have met up! Oh well, October will do nicely. Wishing you a safe and wonderful and funny and beautiful time.
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I’m sorry about your family emergency. It would be fun to meet up. Where in Italy are you going in October?
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In and out of Milan, with stops in Turin, Genoa, Florence, Ravenna, Ferrara and finally Venice through mid-November when it will hopefully be romantically foggy with no crowds. Daytrips to Padua and maybe other places. Our longest trip ever since semi-retirement. I will be pining for my three neurotic cats and hoping they behave for their sitter.
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Now that’s quite an art history filled trip! We are in Ravenna now. I hope you can see Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara—I adored it and would love to see what you’d write about it. Our cat sitter just wrote me and said my cat Shinto was trying to steal her dinner, which sound about right. I predict your cats will behave the same way.
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Now I’m thinking I could trade my two nights in Milan to two nights in Mantua. Looking forward to reading more about what you’re looking at! It’s all the same to my cats…
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You are right, do the travelling while you can, see as much as you can – and don’t forget to tell us about what you see!
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I think I set a record for taking pictures….
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Great that you & HOB are on the road again! Looking forward to your pictures when the wifi cooperates. Do you even have a denim mini-skirt???
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I don’t normally wear denim mini-skirts, but I keep one in my backpack so I can wear it while smoking and using flash photography in churches.
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Fun fact! Back in the days when Lega Nord wanted the North to secede (it was a moment in the early 1990s, before the Lega discovered money and decided to become corrupts as they were bound to, eventually, be) Mantova was to be the seat of the “Parliament of the North”. Somehow, every time I think about it, I imagine something like Winterfell.
Glad you’re back travelling. The Sbrisolona (a dialectal term to mean that it’s a crumbly cake, in a classic “no shit, Sherlock!” moment) has one use. If you spill motor oil on the road, it’s good to mop it up and prevent trip hazards. As for food… nah, it’s pointless. They do make a nice cake (Torta Elvezia) in Mantua, though.
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With this new job, I only have 10 days vacation so I have to be strategic.
We should have tried the Torta Elvezeria….
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10 DAYS!?! In another company we had offices in Norway where my colleagues had 40 days’ paid leave (here in the UK it was 26+bank holidays) and our US clients couldn’t believe it as they only had 15. Still, as my Norwegian colleagues never missed an opportunity to point out, “we still manage to get all our sh*t done AND take all our leave!”.
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Good to have you back documenting signage from across the world. I’d begun to think that maybe people are getting rid of all those useful signs which set such high standard of behaviour for us.
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My favorite of all time was a hand painted sign at a monastery in Romania that had a lady with a tube top with a red X over her and it said “Have some self respect!”.
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🙂
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