Tag Archives: travel
Venice is not ideal for picnics or Parkinson’s
When I booked our trip to Italy, I had a choice to fly out of either Milan or Venice for the same amount of frequent flyer miles. As a smaller and car-free city, Venice seemed like the best option for HOB, who has Parkinson’s Disease. We had visited Venice one other time, and that was […]
Teatro all’Antica, Sabbioneta: ideal city as theater
Vespasiano I Gonzaga had a lot going on for him; he was a duke, he had an awesome name, and if this statue of him is realistic, he was a total hottie. But was he satisfied? Nuh uh—Duke Hottie Gonzaga wanted his very own ideal city, so in the mid 1500’s he commissioned Sabbioneta. Sabbioneta […]
Empress Theodora in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna deserves her halo
If there was Venn diagram of things I can’t get enough of: Byzantine architecture, Western art history and Sears catalogs from the 1980’s, The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna would be right in that sweet spot where they come together. It was built 540 in a double octagonal Byzantine-stye design that was all the […]
Art history tumbles forward with Giulio Romano’s giants in Mantua
Here’s how they did things in Italy for around 1400 years; popes, baby Jesus, really fancy places to put the popes and all the church people in, saints, more baby Jesus, everyone dies from the plague, more baby Jesus, oh hey, look— some ancient stuff—maybe we should rediscover it, let’s make some art and buildings […]
Graduate like Dante in Padua
It’s springtime in Padua, a university town, and that means graduation parties. So many wholesome scenes. Extended families presenting flowers to the proud graduate, who is decked out in a Dante-style wreath of laurels. Grampa, grandma, parents—everyone raising their spritzes in a toast which I was easily able to interpret having learned Italian as a […]
Mantua, Italy: once more, with trip hazards
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 […]
A sprint through Toronto’s museums
At my goodbye party at my former museum job, I was presented with two official gifts “to thank you for your years of service”: 1: A gorgeous artist-designed bag, which once I pulled out of layers of fluffy tissue paper, I was told I couldn’t actually keep, but I would receive later by mail (I […]
Toronto: all wonderful (except the poutine)
Actually, we didn’t try the poutine. Yeah, I am the lady who always tries the local foods but… …it just looks regurgitated. Oh, did I mention we just came back from a flash trip to Toronto? I mean, what would make sense with me about to start a new job is that that I would […]
The (mostly concrete) churches of Reykjavík
So when we were in Reykjavik we looked at a lot of churches, Whoa—plot twist! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? For a brief look back at Iceland’s church heritage, here’s a turf church from 1842 that we saw in the Árbær Open Air Museum. The wooden Mosfell Church in South Iceland was built […]
Cooking (and a magic refrigerator) in Reykjavik
Not to ruin my budget travel cred or anything, but I didn’t try super hard to have a cheap trip to Iceland. (And by Iceland, I mean Reykjavik, because we didn’t leave the city other than a couple of day trips.) The last minute nature of the travel, plus the Covid situation meant I tried […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 