Pavia

This week was hectic so we decided to stay close to home on Saturday and went about twenty miles away to the city of Pavia.  It is a nice little town and was very quiet.  We visited the duomo there (there is duomo - cathedral - in every city).  They are amazing and most are very old.  Here you can see the remains of a tower that fell only a few years ago. 

The front door is about 30 ft high.  I am amazed how they get the hinges to be square.

Again the streets are tiny in parts of the city.  Lots of cobblestones too.  After visiting the Duomo and a few calls from the Mission President we sat down at a sidewalk café and had Orange juice and chocolate filled croissants  They were delicious!

Everyone seemed to be walking down this one street.  So did too!

There are street performers usually in the city center (main piazza) mimes, musicians, even Mickey Mouse (topolino here).  People dance with dummies dressed up in flashy costumes, etc.  It gives a lot of atmosphere.

Just one of the usual gorgeous buildings present everywhere.

This scene is in one of the small parks everywhere.

This is the University of Pavia - Columbus graduated from this university.  In many of the pictures of Columbus, he is wearing a kind of flat hat that covers his ears and is nearly to his shoulders.  It appears to be the same hat worn by many of the illustrious graduates of this university.  In any of the statuary and stonework effigies the same hat is present.
 

These statutes are of more modern day heads of the university.  They like to see themselves in stone a lot.  There are tons of statutes or stone effigies everywhere you look in any city.  There are a lot inside the churches as well.

Usually these stone pieces give a bit of history to identify the people and places.

This little house was very ornate and around the back there were funny little cupolas and towers . We tried to get where we could take pictures but the traffic flow did not allow us to stop.

Believe it or not - these are rice paddies.  We are surrounded by rice fields.  That is why there are so many mosquitos.  This field was right next to the monastery we visited.

This is the monastery.  We didn't get in - Italians take their two hour lunch very seriously and so it was closed when we got there.  As it was a very hot day, we just walked around it.

It is a lovely setting though. After we left, we came across this tiny little restaurant with a "tourist" menu.  It was just a married couple, the dining room was upstairs and lovely and cool.  The man cooked all the food which was wonderful.  We had an appetizer (antipasti) of homemade bread and a pepper salsa.  Then we had the prima piatta (first course) of really delicious spaghetti with a fresh basil and tomato sauce ( a whole 12 inch skillet full).  Then for the seconda piatta (second course) we had grilled sausages with chilled grilled vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, peppers) Normally the vegetables are served separately as a third course (contorni), But the man knew we were Americans and asked if we wanted our vegetables with our meat.   It too was so good. Then we had fresh chilled cantaloupe for the last course.  All for about 18 dollars each.  The atmosphere, the music, the couple who owned it made it worth every penny.  Speaking of new experiences, when we shop for groceries, things are a little different here.  As you can see from this next picture.

 

 

We get the whole experience including the smell.  Needless to say, we are not squid fans.  The stores have many different kinds of foods.  We do try many but not this.  We try many of the different stores to find our food.  We will try a German based store this week.  Every shopping trip is an adventure.   So far we have found almost everything we need.  Pavia was a nice little trip.