Cultural Italy Blog: Art, Coffee & Love
HISTORICAL MOMUMENT
Did you know that Colosseum, perhaps world’s most famous architectural landmark ever,was, for years, a pasture for sheep? There were also times when citizens were slowly demolishing the Roman Giant using it as a source of construction materials to build their own tiny houses.
DAY TRIP
Genoa, the capital of Liguria, has the second busiest port and is the sixth largest city in Italy. One of the most beautiful cathedrals if found here. The Duomo di Genova or Cattedrale di San Lorenzo was consecrated in 1118. Updated and embellished through the centuries, today it is famous for its almost two bell towers, a catchy façade, Gothic portals and stunning marble decorations.
WINTER ACTIVITIES
While summer travel draws crowds to Italy with warm weather and outdoor activities, winter vacations can be magical with holiday celebrations, winter activities and fewer tourists. Christmas in Italy is just as big if not bigger than in the United States.
ART
Visiting Italian holy places, expect sights beyond human scale. Expect magnificence and the divine. Expect something outstanding and almost heavenly imposing. Expect pure beauty and the ornate looking down at you from above. It is in Italy, if fact, that you will learn the real meaning of a masterpiece.
EXHIBITION
You won’t believe your eyes! Bright colors, neon lights and luminous installations that alter your visual and physical perception of space and time is now on show in Milan. Stunning “Environments” exhibition of Lucio Fontana’s works will bring you through surreal sequence of spaces: from totally dark and soft-lined, to dazzling, monochrome, seemingly infinite, or even tight and anxious nine rooms.
DAY TRIP
134 meters long by 48 meters wide, and surrounded by continuous arcades on its three sides, this giant piazza in Vigevano seems to be almost out of scale. It is really surprising indeed that such a tiny town possesses such a spectacular and epic city square. Impressive, however not only in terms of its dimensions, but relevant also for its stunning architecture.