Site seeing
Italy has 61 listed UNESCO World Heritage sites (WHS), more than any other nation. We visited quite a few during my recent holiday!
England has 35 sites and Wales has three and Scotland seven. I’m familiar with many of the British ones and have worked on interpretation plans for some of them too. Our journey across Italy this summer, avoided the larger cities such as Venice, Florence and Milan and instead we visited Padova, Bergamo and Sienna. At each one we stumbled across stunning architecture many of which are WHS.
At Padova we were delighted and surprised by the Scrovegni Chapel which is drenched in Giotto’s paintings which are over 700 years old. The introductory film introduced the frescos and explained the stories illustrated. Entry was timed and we were allowed a very specific amount of time inside the chapel.
We braced ourselves for a hot afternoon in Sinea where we visited the stripey cathedral. It’s hard to describe the delight and scale of the stripes and decoration inside the cathedral. The floor is a patchwork of marble created by over 40 artists between the 1300s and 1500s. The library is beautifully decorated and displays some stunning illustrated choir books. I bought a guidebook to learn more as there was little information for visitors. Maybe when places are this stunning, we should just enjoy without asking questions about who built it, when and why? I find myself wondering how I would do the interpretation, multi-lingual, engaging but without getting on the way
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We stayed for a week in Tuscany and the area that included the small village where we visited the butchers, bakery and coop for supplies, is part of the Tuscan Mining Park UNESCO Geopark. Massa Marittima the larger town where we went for more extensive supplies and gelato has a wonderful medieval wall that encompasses much of the city. The climb up to the walls was steep and the entrance involved dodging swifts who were nesting in the walls
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Our final stop was in Bergamo, a city of two parts the old part is medieval and the ‘new’ more recent but not that new! The city’s WHS inscription is for the Venetian Walls which surround the old town. We loved walking around both parts of the city which was full of unusual shops and following a tip off on a blog visited the Palazzo Moroni. I was very excited that we could use our UK National Trust cards (and that we both had them with us) to gain free entry! The palace is stunning and surrounded by wonderful gardens. It didn’t have a café so no NT scones!
