Day 10- Ferrara is beautiful!

Riding along the town walls in the morning- great way to catch a breeze!

What the heck, might as well make it a habit! Started the day with renting some bikes and heading up to the medieval era walls that go all the way around the town. Beautiful way to start the day! The linden trees are blooming everywhere and they smell almost like jasmine. From the elevated walls you catch little glimpses of the towers and steeples of Ferrara, plus other bits outside the walls. You can circumnavigate the old town in less than an hour, and it's super pleasant. It also has condom machines.

Convenient condom machines near the bike path, because you never know who you might bump into out on your bike

Took in the Palazzina Marfisa d'Este, a lovely old house with period furniture and elaborate grottesca ceilings that are badly in need of a cleaning. Couldn't take many pictures since we were the only ones there and the docents followed us around like bird dogs! Nice to be in a smaller town for less crowds, but this is the flip side of that coin. They also are really serious about their hours; if you're in there at 12:30 and they close at one for lunch, they pretty much breathe on you so you'll leave a bit early. They're probably mostly volunteers, so I get it, but it's not what we're used to and makes you feel a bit unwelcome, especially since we paid 5 Euros to get in.

View from outside of the Palazzina Marfisa d'Este. Since they wouldn't let you take them inside, I took a few from outside. Nyah!

Later went to the Palazzo Schifanoia and the Castello Estense. After all the beautiful maintenance we've seen on the trip it was a bit shocking to see ceilings like this at the Castello. Not through any fault of its caretakers, we learned that this is all damage from the May 2012 earthquakes that occurred in this region. Ferrara was particularly hard hit- the Castello lost part of its tower and a church near the Piazza lost the upper part of its facade. The Palazzo Schifanoia, one of the town's treasures, is still 80% closed, with piles of exterior masonry lying in the courtyard behind. Very sad stuff!

Beautiful plaster entry to the Palazzo Schifanoia.  Most of the interior was closed due to the  2012 earthquake.

So all the tissue paper you see here has been applied to cracks, to keep more plaster from falling off. It is very delicately applied with reversible adhesives that will stay until it can be properly restored. I wonder if they need helpers...hmmmm!

Ceiling in the Castello Estense with paper applied to keep crumbles from falling out of the cracks made by the earthquake in 2012.

In any case, it's nice that they are still open (except for the rooms at Schifanoia) and that they let you look at them even- in their damaged state they are still stunning! This one is called the Hall of games, as the imagery is all based on a 16th century translation of Greek gymnastic exercises as described by Vitruvius in Roman times.The castello has dungeons that were truly chilling, and not just in temperature. Supposedly there was one man in there for 43 years before being released-(shivers!!) 

Went back to our lovely room (I wish I could pack this one up and take it to our other stops- it's really comfy and cheap!) for a lunch of store bought stuff, which is becoming our pattern. Some fresh and roasted veggies, a bit of bread, yummy cheeses-all for about $10.

Hit the bikes again around 5 pm to take in one more Palazzo and get a gelato in the piazza before returning our rides and going back to our cozy cave.