Things to do in East Of Milan
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Festivaletteratura
For five days each September, central Mantua is taken over by the Festivaletteratura, with open-air bookstalls, and readings and author discussions (some in English).
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Palazzo Te
The main reason to visit Mantua’s other Gonzaga palace, Palazzo Te isn’t its modern art and Egyptian displays, but the fanciful 16th-century palace itself. Built by Giulio Romano, over-the-top rooms include the Camera dei Giganti, one of the most fantastic and frightening creations of the Renaissance, adorned with dramatic frescoes depicting Jupiter’s destruction of the Titans.
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Market stalls
Market stalls selling everything from fruit, flowers, pots, pans and clothes to useless clutter fill Piazzas Sordello, Broletto and delle Erbe and their surrounding streets on Thursday morning. More than a million pigs a year are reared in the province of Mantua. Try salumi (salt pork), pancetta(salt-cured bacon), prosciutto crudo (salt-cured ham) and risotto with the locally grown vialone nano rice.
Tortelli di zucca (sweet pumpkin-stuffed cushions of square pasta) is the city's most venerable dish, while risotto alla pilota (risotto with minced pork) and luccio (pike) also appear on most menus. Mantua is also renowned for its sweet specialities, including torta di tagli…
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Castello di San Giorgio
Palazzo Ducale's centrepiece is Castello di San Giorgio, overflowing with works of art collected by the Gonzaga family, Mantua's long-time rulers. Don't miss Andrea Mantegna's Camera degli Sposi, a wonderful series of frescoes executed by the master between 1465 and 1474 in one of the castle's towers. The trompe l'oeil oculus adds a playful touch to the more formal family scenes.
Other rooms worth pausing over include the Sala del Pisanello, decorated with unfinished 15th-century frescoes of Arthurian legends by Pisanello, the heavily frescoed Sala di Troia and the Camera dello Zodiaco, with its magnificent deep-blue ceiling festooned with figures from the zodiac. Equally…
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Basilica di Sant’Andrea
The elaborate baroque cupola of Basilica di Sant’Andrea lords it over the city. Designed by Leon Battista Alberti in 1472, it safeguards a much-disputed relic: golden vessels said to hold earth soaked by the blood of Christ. Longinus, the Roman soldier who speared Christ on the cross, is said to have scooped up the earth and buried it in Mantua after leaving Palestine. Today, these containers rest beneath a marble octagon in front of the altar and are paraded around the town in a grand procession on Good Friday. There is no dispute about the tomb of Andrea Mantegna, also inside the basilica.
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Cattedrale
Cremona’s stately Cattedrale started out as a Romanesque basilica, but by the time it was finished in 1190, it was heavily overtaken by Gothic modishness. The main facade also bears some distinct Renaissance touches, in keeping with paintings of the same period by such masters as Boccaccio Boccaccino, Giulio Campi and Gian Francesco Bembo. For some, the remnants of earlier frescoes, uncovered during work in the early 1990s, will be more intriguing. They include a vast scene of the Crucifixion above the central doorway.
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Gaspar Borchardt
Home of the prized Stradivari violin, Cremona is the premier exponent of the delicate art of making the perfect stringed instrument. All of the great violin-making dynasties started here, including Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari.
Today there are 100 violin-making workshops in the streets around the Piazza del Comune that can be visited, including Gaspar Borchardt. The tourist office has a list, and can advise on those where English is spoken.
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Piazza del Comune
Like most Lombard towns, Cremona was an independent comune until the 14th century, when the Viscontis of Milan added it to their growing collection. To maintain the difference between the secular and spiritual, buildings connected with the Church were erected on the eastern side of Piazza del Comune, and those concerned with secular affairs were constructed across the way. On Sundays, the piazza is filled with antique stalls.
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Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Begun in 1137, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is quite a mishmash. To its whirl of Romanesque apses (on which some external frescoes remain visible), Gothic additions were slapped on. A more obvious addition is the busy Renaissance Cappella Colleoni, on the side facing the Piazza del Duomo. Detached from the church is the octagonal baptistry.
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Motonavi Andes
Motonavi Andes organises boat tours of the lakes (starting from €8 for 1½ hours), five-hour excursions to San Benedetto Po (one-way Monday to Saturday €13.50, Sunday €15.50) and day trips to Venice (€77 Monday to Saturday, €84 Sunday). Boats arrive/depart from the Imbarco Motonavi Andes, behind Castello di San Giorgio on Lago di Mezzo’s shore.
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Ristorante Masseria
Masseria’s supremely sweet tortelli di zucca is among the best in town; other house specialities include Mantuan beef stew with Lambrusco and polenta, and platters piled with local cheeses and dollops of mustard. Choose to eat in the cobbled square, or in a 13th-century dining room overlooked by a 15th-century fresco – the oldest depiction of the city in existence.
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Trattoria al Teatro
Located in a centuries-old building at the west end of the città alta, this family-run spot has a limited but constantly changing menu of down-home local dishes. Choose from a handful of primi and secondi, with such local classics as casoncelli alla bergamasca, followed perhaps by a filetto ai ferri (a grilled beef filet).
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Museo della Città
Inside the rambling Monastero di Santa Giulia & Basilica di San Salvatore complex is the Museo della Città, where artefacts from the Roman town are on show, including some intricate mosaics. The star piece of the collection is the 8th-century Croce di Desiderio, a Lombard cross encrusted with hundreds of jewels.
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La Rocca
The 19th-century section of Museo Storico della Città is located in the fortress La Rocca, whose round tower dates from Bergamo’s days as a Venetian outpost. La Rocca keeps the same hours as the main museum. The same ticket covers entry here and also to La Rocca’s surrounding park, with sweeping views over Bergamo.
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Torre del Campanone
Across the square from the Palazzo della Ragione, the colossal, square-based Torre del Campanone tolls the old 10pm curfew. There’s a wheelchair-accessible lift to the top of the tower. For €5 you get entry to the tower and other sights around the city, including La Rocca and the Museo Donizettiano.
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Trattoria Due Stelle
Timber-panelled walls, sturdy dark-wood dining tables (each with candle) and great grub entice locals and outsiders alike to sit down for a feast. They do some excellent risottos (try agli scampi mantecato alla citronette – a creamy risotto loaded with crayfish and touched with citronette dressing).
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Colleoni & dell’Angelo
Piazza Vecchia provides the ideal backdrop to savour inventive local cuisine in an extraordinary setting. First courses include ravioloni ripieni di Bagoss alle foglie di basilico fritto e vitello glassato (big dumplings filled with local Bagoss cheese with fried basil leaves and veal glazing).
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Accademia Carrara
Just east of the walls is one of Italy’s great art repositories, Accademia Carrara. Founded in 1780, it contains an exceptional range of Italian masters. Raphael’s San Sebastiano is a highlight, but other artists represented include Botticelli, Canaletto, Mantegna and Titian.
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Duomo Vecchio
The most compelling of all Brescia’s religious monuments is the 11th-century Duomo Vecchio, a rare example of a circular-plan Romanesque basilica, built over a 6th-century church. Interesting features include fragmentary floor mosaics and the elaborate 14th-century sarcophagus of Bishop Berado Maggi.
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Castello
Brescia’s historic centre is dominated by a hill, Colle Cidneo, crowned with the rambling Castello, which for centuries was at the core of the city defences. Torre Mirabella, the main round tower, was built by the Viscontis in the 13th century.
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Hosteria ’700
Behind the dilapidated facade and a row of parked cars lurks a sparkling gem. A series of vaulted rooms set a romantic scene for hearty Lombard cooking. Try the marubini al brodo o al burro fuso (meat- and cheese-stuffed disks of pasta in broth or melted butter), a Cremona speciality.
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Casa Mantegna
In 1476, the ruling Gonzaga family gave Andrea Mantegna land on which to build himself a house. You can see the results, now used as exhibition space in the Casa Mantegna. The sobre facade gives way to a series of rooms built around a unique, cylindrical courtyard.
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Monastero di Santa Giulia & Basilica di San Salvatore
About 50m east of the Tempio Capitolino along Via dei Musei, cobbled Vicolo del Fontanon leads to the well-preserved ruins of a Roman theatre. Continuing east you'll reach Brescia's most intriguing sight - the jumbled Monastero di Santa Giulia & Basilica di San Salvatore.
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Rotonda di San Lorenzo
South of the Basilica di Sant’Andrea, across 15th-century colonnaded Piazza delle Erbe, is the 11th-century Romanesque Rotonda di San Lorenzo, sunk below the level of the square and believed to stand on the site of a Roman temple dedicated to Venus.
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Parco dell Scienza
A riverside promenade with an informative twist, the Parco dell Scienza stretches along the shore of Lago di Mezzo from Porta San Giorgio to Porta Molina. Information panels and gadgets illustrate various physical and scientific phenomena in a kid-friendly fashion.
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