Rachel's Adventures in Rome!: Fun in Ferrara

We hopped on a regional train, and an hour-and-a-half later we arrived in Ferrara. It was pouring rain, and we had to walk about 20 minutes to reach our hotel. But the walk was worth it--we were staying in the old city, just a two minute walk from the main piazza, the Duomo and the Castello Estense. We met up with our tour guide and headed off on a walking tour of the city. There were several things in particular that I enjoyed: Our guide showed us a straight street that had been built during the renaissance, which at the time had been considered a very wide and grand street. Today it can fit one lane of cars in each direction with narrow sidewalks. In the renaissance, the street was used for horse and foot races, so the houses overlooking the street had been built with elegant balconies so there inhabitants could watch the events from above. As he explained this, I found myself imagining how the city would have looked during the festivities. Our last stop on the tour was an amazing and creepy place a bit outside the center of town--an abandoned monastery, turned cemetery. I think that part of what was so weird was the the grounds of the monastery were huge and beautiful, but now they are just being used as a burial ground. Because of the water table in Ferrara, you can’t actually bury people in the ground, so the are buried in the walls along the walkways of the monastery. It was a weird and beautiful experience to walk around the grounds, particularly in the pouring rain. Here again, we saw the way in which spaces are reused and repurposed throughout the course of history. Instead of tearing down the monastery, it was put to use in a new way. We have seen the same thing in other buildings and churches that we have visited on the trip as well. The following day we had a free morning in Ferrara. First, I visited the inside of the Castello Estense. The castle was filled with beautiful painted walls and ceilings, a tiny chapel, and exhibits offered early maps of the city. We were also able to go down into the dungeons--creepy! It turned out that there was also a festival going on that day in which one of the neighborhoods was celebrating the water buffalo and the invention of buffalo mozzarella. There were people of all ages dressed up in Medieval garb, and there was traditional music and flag dancing. As I toured the castle, I was able to look out on the inner-courtyard to watch the festivities. Later, our professor explained to us that in the Middle Ages there were distinct neighborhood delineations, and that to this day, the different neighborhoods would have days of celebration in which they “showed off,” and geared up for a larger celebration in which all of the neighborhood showed off their talents and competed against one another. It was fascinating to see a tradition in action that had its roots in the Middle Ages. Following my visit to the castle, I walked down the street where the Jewish ghetto had once existed, hoping to visit the synagogue and Jewish Museum, but there was a sign on the door saying that the museum and synagogue were still closed due to an earthquake last year. Interestingly, we were visiting Ferrara just several days after Liberation Day (commemorating Italy’s liberation from the Nazis), and there was a large wreath decorated in Italian colors outside of the synagogue under the plaque commemorating Italian Jews killed during the war. The week following Liberation Day, we saw many of these wreaths placed around Rome and throughout Northern Italy set out under any plaque, memorial or monument relating to World War II.

I really enjoyed Ferrara and was disappointed that we didn’t have more time there. Part of what was so neat was that I could clearly discern the medieval part of the city, and then where the renaissance part of the city had been built onto that. I was able to set myself back in time much more easily in Ferrara than in Ravenna, I think in part because we stayed in the old part of the city and I really got a sense for how compact it was and how narrow the streets were. And of course getting to see the festivities involving period dress and music was an added bonus! I also found myself comparing Ferrara to our earlier visits outside of Rome. We had visited the medieval cities of Perugia and Assisi earlier in the trip, but Ferrara felt very different, in part I think because it was not on a hill which provided different challenges for the city. Like Rome, Ferrara had medieval walls enclosing the city which provided it with some defense. I think one of the most major differences that I noticed was between the castle in Assisi and the castle in Ferrara. The castle in Assisi was high up on a hill with walls surrounding it. In Ferrara, the castle sat on the edge of town and on flat ground. This meant that in addition to walls, the castle had a moat to increase its defenses against invaders. Being able to see the different challenges posed to city’s defenses due to its physical landscape was fascinating.