Day 2: Hot in Ferrara

Today was full day #2 in Ferrara, and since it was a weekend we didn't have any official business to take care of and had the day to ourselves.  We had big plans for the day, but it's been so hot here--a respectable 102 degrees today with 35% humidity.  Which feels at least 150 when you're jet lagged, tired, and lugging around a sometimes fussy baby. There are also tons of mosquitoes, and according to our waiter last night, they never go away. Even in the winter. But we forced ourselves out anyway, and first went to the castle this morning.  The Castello Estense has four towers and is surrounded by a moat with three draw-bridges into it. We missed the guided tour, which was probably best since Michael tends to be a little unpredictable, and just walked around ourselves.  We saw the dungeons, the kitchens, the chapel, and all the rooms on the second floor with beautiful frescoes on the ceilings.

The castle, from Wikipedia

 

Robbie and Carolyn by the cannonballs.

 

 

 

 

Creepy face in one of the paintings

 

Ceiling Frescoes

 

 

After that, we were hungry so we went back to the hotel and ate. Michael took a nap, and we tried to take it easy and stay out of the heat a little while.  Once we felt better, we decided to venture back out to the cathedral.  I took the super-quick walk around because there was an actual service going on and Michael decided he wanted to see how loud he could make his voice echo, but Robbie and little Robbie stayed in for a while and got the whole experience, including listening to the pipe organ. The church is beautiful, but our pictures are better than any description I could type!

 

 

 

We got back "home" and Michael needed another nap. He woke up around 8:pm (ugh... that's supposed to be bedtime) and we went out to our first Italian pizzeria! Our sponsors had said they weren't very impressed by the pizza in Ferrara, but we loved it!  It has a thin crust. The place we went cooked the pizzas in a fire right by the entrance to the restaurant.  Our waiter, Paulo was super nice and thankfully not only was happy to speak English to us (he wanted to work on his English skills) but also gave us a few pointers on our Italian and came back to talk to us the whole time we were eating.  We heard that some of the people in Ferrara aren't too friendly, but we've lucked out in the waiter department.  Both waiters we've had at dinner so far were great, very accommodating, and understanding that our Italian is pretty much non-existent.  We were glad to find good pizza, but tonight was the last night they were open before they go on vacation until August 23.  Paulo said he'd wave us down to talk if he saw us walking around town.

Robbie and little Robbie spent some time last night going through some Italian lessons after Michael and I went to bed to try to improve.  It an be intimidating to go out knowing we can't understand what people say. The castle was full of older Italian, probably volunteer docents who kept trying to talk to us and give us instructions we didn't understand.  We got along with the few words we know and some pantomiming, but I think Robbie and I both just try to smile and nod and not look totally lost.  We're all feeling the push to learn more Italian, and hopefully we'll have time to sit down and really work on it while.

We are still trying to adjust to the time change. I think little Robbie is there, but Michael is having a tough time and consequently, Robbie and I are having some problems.  Both nights we've been here and this morning, Michael has woken up almost inconsolable in the middle of the night because he's starving. We have to get up and feed him real food before he'll go back to sleep, usually an hour and a half to two hours later. I've tried to feed him as much as I can throughout the day to try to help with the problem today, so we'll see if it helps. 

We have tomorrow morning free, then are going to see 4 houses in the afternoon. It's supposed to be rainy, so maybe it will be cooler.  Hopefully we find something we like!