Yesterday, Saturday, was our regular P Day. It was also general conference, but the first session didn't start here until 6 pm. During the morning we drove, in our car, with the Salatinos (I prefer to call them Salatini, which is the Italian plural). They are the only senior couple who live close to us, and we do things together. We drove about 20 minutes south to the Cetosa di Pavia, which is one of the largest monasteries in Italy. It is in a very small town about 10 minutes north of Pavia, which is an old city, actually an old Roman city, about 30 miles south of us. Anyway, the Certosa was started in about 1000 ad and is still, sort of, being used, although I suspect there are only about 4 or 5 monks there, because that is all we saw. The one who took us on a tour was from Ethopia and spoke very good Italian. We had to park a long way from the front gate, and walk. The only thing we had to pay for is parking, which was 4 euros for the 2 hours we were there. But we were not allowed to take pictures in the very large, very old, and beautiful church. One of the altars was about 12 feet high by 6 feet high and was made with ivory.
Road we walked about a half mile on to get to the Certosa or monastary. Sister Salatino had a meter on her watch, and we walked a total of 5 miles yesterday.
Turn the other direction and you can see the Certosa we were walking to.
The old moat around the monastary, although we didn't see any crocodille
Inner courtyard, looking at church. There was a little door where they could put things like babies in baskets, although we didn't see any babies.
Past the inner courtyard is a large porch, with the church in the background. The church is very large and very impressive, but they forbid me from taking any pictures inside. In fact, I was yelled at by an old monk, when he saw me take a pix on the outside. I may have been drawn and quartered if I would have use the camera inside. Some other people were taking pix when he wasn't looking, but I tried to be obedient.
Where the monks washed their hands.
I counted 24 houses for the monks within the walls, with a large field and grape vines around the perimeter. They made their own wine, of course, which they sold in the gift shop. I bought a pix of a page from a hymn book, acutally a large pix of Gregorian Chant, with a pix of Jesus' birth, which I have hanging in my office at the mission office
Cell number A. Through the little door on the right they passed food to the monks, who stayed in their cell for quite a few hours of the day, being quiet. They went to the church about 2 am to sing Gregorian Chant and to pray.
Monk's table and fireplace in the "living room" if you could call it that. I doubt the cell was ever very warm, because that isn't a very large fireplace.
Monk slept on the floor under the cross, I don't think they had beds.
Each cell had these, outside, but inside in a private courtyard, not accessible to anyone except the monk. It must be where they got their water and perhaps passed it, we couldn't see any other signs of "facilities" Maybe they used bedpans, which they passed back through the food door.
All of the windows, including inside, had bars, I guess to keep people in, and robbers out.
They are very enamoured with their windows and bars. So much so, when there wasn't a real one, they painted them on the wall. These are only painted on the wall, they aren't real.
Our guiding monk, who was from Ethopia. There aren't many Italians who want to be monks these days.
Downtown of Pavia, showing some of the sights, which are all within walking distance, although we walked 5 miles to see them, as per the watch of Sister Salatino. We parked our car in a place where you can park cars. You go to a box, put in money and it gives you a slip that you put on your windshield for the number of hours that you paid.
Entrance to the university of Pavia, one of the oldest in the world, started in the 1300s. During the 1800s one of the professors of physics was a Dr. Volta, after whom the volt (a measure of electricity) was named.
The university area has many statues in and around buildings, this one reminds students to be honest.
There is an old church at the university, which has been destroyed.
University student having his lunch talking on his cell phone.
Large doors into large houses, (you could drive your horse inside) but the small doors are for people to enter through. As you can see, they were made small to make it more difficult to enter.
Side of the duomo, or cathedral, with some the Roman building showing, on which the cathedral was built.
The duomo dome, one of the largest in Italy (only one larger is the dome on St. Peter's in Rome) in the background, we didn't go inside, because it was closed for the afternoon, it closes about 11:30 (for liesurly lunch and nap) and opens again at 3:30 pm.
Some of the streets in Pavia are pretty narrow.
I would have liked to have taken a pix of what they were eating outside the little restaurant, but it would have been a little too obvious--Myrna is my conscious. There are many small restaurants with outside seating, sometimes only a table or two. We ate at a restaurant in downtown Pavia, although we ate inside. Our first course was fried rice with sea food, like octapus, then we had chicken cacciatore, with polenta, for second. Actually, it wasn't very good, compared with pizza, that I wish we would have had instead, although we would have gone to another restaurant.
River over the Ticino that bisects the city, this bridge was bombed out by the Allies during the Second World War, but has been faithfully restored, including the little church in the middle. This is a covered bridge.
This is how I know these things, signs are in Italian and English, with Braille too.
Guy in a kyak (how every you spell it), the stones in the middle of the river are left overs from the Roman bridge that crossed this river.
Sign about the old Roman bridge
Entrance to the castle in the middle of the city of Pavia. It is a very large castle, although we didn't take a tour (there were several) because we didn't have several hours to do it. We needed to get back
for general conference, that started at 6 pm.
Inside the castle reminded me of the inside of the monastery. I guess the rich lived in castles and the monks in monasteries, with moats and lots of bars to keep the masses outside.
Outside of the castle walls, it would probably take about a half hour to walk all around it. It was a city in and of itself.
Flowering trees are beginning to blossom. Spring is in the air, although it was an overcast day and
we thought it would rain.
Italians are fairly demonstrative and affectionate. I saw many like this, but didn't want to be too obvious to take pix of them. I took this from quite a distance, with the zoom on my camera.
See the star of David in the pavement of this church.
.Another narrow street with another demonstrative couple
Another narrow street, although they allow busses on this one.
We went back home and watched the Saturday morning session of conference, which started at 6 pm, on the large TV in the president's house across the street from the mission office. We watched the priesthood session at our desks in the mission office from our computers, which worked well too. Sister Dibb made spaghetti and salad, with gelato and cookies Myrna quickly made for dinner. The Salatini ate with us. President Dibb's brother married President Monson's daughter, who we saw with him at conference. Her husband sat on the front row.
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