Continuing my day from my last post…
When the bus from Aquileia arrived back in Udine, I walked a couple of blocks to the correct bus stop across the street from the train station. Once back in the centro, my first stop was a visit to Oggi Gelato. Their nocciola gelato is heavenly!! YUM!!!!
Next, I headed to the Castello di Udine. The castle was rebuilt after a terrible earthquake that destroyed the building in 1511.
There are two ways to get to the castle from Piazza della Libertà – walking through the L’Arco Bollini (constructed in 1556 by Andrea Palladio) and then up the stairway OR walking up the walkway where you will find the beautiful Porticato del Lippomano (constructed in 1487). I took the stairs up and later on the walkway back down.
There are three museums housed inside the Castello di Udine. There also was a mostra (show) happening on the top floor. My FVG card got me into the 3 museums for free.
The Museo Archeologico is not very big but I LOVED the sculpture (below). It was so realistic looking. The sleeves looked just like fabric flowing freely.
The Museo del Risorgimento was obviously all about the military. It was pretty interesting covering a large timeline.
When entering one section of one of the museums, there was a screen showing this man sitting at a desk writing. As I walked closer to the screen, all of a sudden he looks up and says “Salve” and then continued to speak in Italian. I jumped! I did not expect that. After a minute or so, he gets up out of his chair and walks to the side of the desk, continuing to talk. I am not sure what he was talking about, but the whole thing was quite amusing. I went back to take a video of this video but a woman started walking in the background talking on her cell phone and ruined it. I didn’t want to wait for the whole thing to end to try to take it again. Here are a couple of screenshots from the video I took.
The Galleria d’Arte Antica is the oldest museum (established in 1866). This gallery of ancient has 13 rooms, one of which is used for temporary exhibitions. This painting (below) – S. Francesco che riceve le stigmate (St. Francis Receiving the Stigmate) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio takes up the entire wall, floor to ceiling. Interestingly, the authenticity of this painting is now being questioned as it may be a Caravaggio copy. It was pretty amazing to me though!
What interested me the most while visiting this gallery was this amazing painting of an ancient map of the city of Udine by Luca Carlevarijs. I am not sure of the year it was painted but the sign says Pianta Prospettica di Udine – Luca Carlevarijs – 1663-1739. The painting was roped off, but I made friends with another museum guard and got a closer look. She was quite curious why I spoke some Italian and even more so, why I was in Udine! She rarely meets any Americans and found it quite interesting that I would spend time in her city. She removed the rope and let me get quite close to this painting. We talked about how the similarities and differences of Udine back then and now. The most interesting thing was seeing the Castello, the Duomo, the Piazza della Libertà, the Loggia di San Giovanni, and the Torre dell’Orologio all right there in that ancient painting just as it is today.
I also loved these paintings, located in the same room. They give you a very good idea of life back then, or at least the fashions of the time…
I was ready to leave when the museum guard insisted that I go take a look at the mostra (which was not included as free admission with the FVG card). The guy at the entrance told me the mostra was about propaganda for I believe WWII but can’t really remember for sure now and did not write it down. He said I probably would not be interested. I went to take a look since she told me it was fine but it really did not hold my interest. I can’t even remember much about it now.
I went outside, took some photos of the views from the castle. Here’s one photo I took…
The place with all of the food from various countries and regions of Italy was not too far from the castle. I decided to walk over there, thinking that I could get something to go and then take it with me to the laundromat. Unfortunately 6pm was much too early for dinner to be made.
I walked back to my hotel, a grabbed my laundry, and then walked back over to the Lavanderia Self Service on Via Caiselli, 23. There was one man there waiting for his laundry to finish drying. Good thing he was there because he told me that the paper euro slot did not work. It just eats your money. Of course I did not have enough coins with me. He was so nice checking to see if he had any, but he did not have enough either to make change. I went back over to L’Alimentare, where I bought some food the night before, hoping they would remember me. They did and was not excited about making change, giving me a bunch of coins, but they did. I thanked them over and over again.
I travel with a small pack of wet ones and brought a couple with me to clean out the slots where the laundry soap and softener leftovers were caked and goopy to make sure no scented smell would get on my clothing. It was an easy process to wash/dry my clothes. Both the washer and dryer each took 30 minutes. Much faster than I thought it would take.
I thought about getting some food to eat from L’Alimentare but all the food had raw onions (which I cannot eat) except for their eggplant parmigiana, which I did not want to eat two nights in a row. Instead, I decided to walk back to my hotel and eat there since I was tired and I saw on their menu that they (as well as most restaurants) serve the famous Frico. The waitress was very nice. My dinner was ‘eh’! There is a lot of should haves on where I should have done for dinner while I was in Udine but c’est la vie. It was nice to be able to just walk upstairs after a late dinner.
What a wonderful day in both Aquileia and Udine! My laundry was done!
Next up – Sunday in Cividale del Friuli
shave ice & gelato 