![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Brescia, finally! I've been flirting with going for ages - wondering if I
should on my first trip, having to pass it by last summer while
frantically driving to a Tuscan gig with the Angels, forcing myself to
ignore trains headed there while in Milan picking up CDs.
Brescia earned my immediate respect - I got lost. I found my bearings
pretty quickly, though, and had a lovely tour of the city. Brescia is
really two cities (to the extent that they even call the second one
"Brescia Two"), with the area north of the train station the historic city
and the area south of the station where they keep the high rises and a few
skyscrapers.
Things of note: there are two cathedrals, side by side. Instead of
knocking down the 12th century building (which is what the 12th century
builders had done to the 6th century precursor) in the 17th century they
built the new cathedral next door, throwing the old one literally into
shadow. The old Roman forum is partially excavated, and a Capitoline
Temple (to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva aka Zeus, hera, and Athena to the
Greeks) partially reconstructed. There's also a Roman Theater next door.
Seeing majestic Roman ruins again after having spent so much time in Rome
really warmed my heart.
Next door there's also a museum I really wanted to see - it was an 8th
century monastary built on the ruins of a Roman living district and is now
the Museum of the City featuring excavations that take visitors from Roman
Brixia through the middle ages in its construction. I was even more eager
when I saw signs for a special Impressionist art exhibit there featuring
my favorite, Turner. Unfortunately the whole thing was closed while they
prepped the exhibit. Drat.
I consoled myself with a hike up to the castle, which presented some
gorgeous views of the city while also being pretty interesting in itself.
Like the castle at Ferrara, they've reconstructed the hardware of the
drawbridges, which are a lot more complicated than I ever thought. I also
ran across a random tower in the middle of the city (which isn't that
uncommon, actually), to which a 16th century fountain had been grafted.
It was really interesting to see a street sign labeled "Via Gasparo da
Salo" (he's the guy who first built the modern violin that I mentioned
last time). Seeing it I looked up the father-son luthier/composer duo for
the cittern on my street map, and was pleased to also find a "Via Virchi"
in another part of town.
It's a fascinating city, and I feel like I barely scraped the tip of the
iceburg on my stay. Hence the subject line of "Brescia I". What I had
hoped for turned out to work; I hadn't planned on staying in Brescia
because I couldn't find affordable lodging in my tour books or online, but
the tourist office gave me a massive list of places in my price range. So
I'm headed back for a week on Monday, and I'll get to see the museum after
all!
should on my first trip, having to pass it by last summer while
frantically driving to a Tuscan gig with the Angels, forcing myself to
ignore trains headed there while in Milan picking up CDs.
Brescia earned my immediate respect - I got lost. I found my bearings
pretty quickly, though, and had a lovely tour of the city. Brescia is
really two cities (to the extent that they even call the second one
"Brescia Two"), with the area north of the train station the historic city
and the area south of the station where they keep the high rises and a few
skyscrapers.
Things of note: there are two cathedrals, side by side. Instead of
knocking down the 12th century building (which is what the 12th century
builders had done to the 6th century precursor) in the 17th century they
built the new cathedral next door, throwing the old one literally into
shadow. The old Roman forum is partially excavated, and a Capitoline
Temple (to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva aka Zeus, hera, and Athena to the
Greeks) partially reconstructed. There's also a Roman Theater next door.
Seeing majestic Roman ruins again after having spent so much time in Rome
really warmed my heart.
Next door there's also a museum I really wanted to see - it was an 8th
century monastary built on the ruins of a Roman living district and is now
the Museum of the City featuring excavations that take visitors from Roman
Brixia through the middle ages in its construction. I was even more eager
when I saw signs for a special Impressionist art exhibit there featuring
my favorite, Turner. Unfortunately the whole thing was closed while they
prepped the exhibit. Drat.
I consoled myself with a hike up to the castle, which presented some
gorgeous views of the city while also being pretty interesting in itself.
Like the castle at Ferrara, they've reconstructed the hardware of the
drawbridges, which are a lot more complicated than I ever thought. I also
ran across a random tower in the middle of the city (which isn't that
uncommon, actually), to which a 16th century fountain had been grafted.
It was really interesting to see a street sign labeled "Via Gasparo da
Salo" (he's the guy who first built the modern violin that I mentioned
last time). Seeing it I looked up the father-son luthier/composer duo for
the cittern on my street map, and was pleased to also find a "Via Virchi"
in another part of town.
It's a fascinating city, and I feel like I barely scraped the tip of the
iceburg on my stay. Hence the subject line of "Brescia I". What I had
hoped for turned out to work; I hadn't planned on staying in Brescia
because I couldn't find affordable lodging in my tour books or online, but
the tourist office gave me a massive list of places in my price range. So
I'm headed back for a week on Monday, and I'll get to see the museum after
all!
