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Desenzano to Mantua to Verona

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 Sorry, I’m late posting this - again. Yesterday morning we were up and at ‘em early. Just waiting outside the hotel for our buses. Pertaining to our concert last night, someone in the audience sent this message to us:   “ Good evening.  I attended your beautiful musical show in Cavriana this evening.  I was truly moved to hear the perfection of the instrumentalists and the great commitment they showed.  As I listened to the music I observed the impassive and concentrated faces of the musicians and I understood once again that as long as there are these angels playing AND as long as we have an audience that loves this great gift that is music, we will no longer have wars.  Thank you for the warmth you have sent us.  See you soon!  Joseph” Beautiful message.  They actually want us to go back next year :/ Today was a drive to Mantua with a tour of part of the old town, then to Verona, where we’re staying for the next 3 nights. When we arrived in Mantua, we met up with a tour guide for th
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Our 2nd and Last Concert

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 Today was the first day since we got here where we could just sleep in and didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time.  All morning and early afternoon we could just do whatever we wanted.  We weren’t really close to the downtown area of Desenzano, but they had the buses here for us to go downtown if we wanted to.  We chose to just chill.   I did wander to a grocery store to pick up something for later as we won’t have much time, nor places to go, to eat.  We’ll be leaving for our concert spot around 5:30 where we’ll do a bit of a sound check and short rehearsal for our concert at 9 pm. I did take a couple of pictures while I was out.  A couple of the mountains across the lake. Oh, and did I mention it was raining?  Yeah - a couple of downpours at times.  Another reason why we didn’t really feel like going into town. And this is the Palace Hotel where we’re staying.  Quite a lovely spot and the nicest hotel yet in our travels here. We just grabbed some lunch at the hotel.  When w
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Around Lake Garda

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 This morning we hopped on the bus, leaving Cremona behind, and headed up to Lake Garda, about an hour away.  Our first stop was Sirmione, which is on the spit of land sticking into Lake Garda.  The poet Catullus wrote about Sirmione as his most beautiful place on earth - well for him, within the Roman Empire. So we get to Sirmione and it’s raining.  It’s actually been raining the last couple of days.  But, we want to take a boat trip anyway…just because.  It was quite a challenge with the rain, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Here we are on the boat: Even though they had covers overhead, water and rain were an issue.  But hey, when we look back on this, we’ll just laugh about it.  There were some interesting moments. When we started out, the boat driver (who did not speak English very well at all) started up some Latin music.  Well, that didn’t go over very well on a boat filled with classical musicians.  We tried to tell him, but he didn’t understand, although he did turn
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Artistic Cremona

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Cremona, Italy, is famous for violin-making.  There are over 200 shops in Cremona that make and repair violins.  It all started here with Andrea Amati in the 15th century and progressed through to Antonio Stradivari who perfected the craft in the 1700s. Our orchestra did a tour of the Violin Museum (Museo del Violino) We went through how they were made, what trees were used (and still used today), etc. Before we started the museum tour, we had a demonstration on a 1757 violin in this room by a very talented player.  They house the original Amati and Stradivari violins here (among others).  Only worth in the millions of euros. After the museum, we all had lunch together at the Ristorante Hotel Duomo.  Very nice spot, and had a 4-course meal - just lunch.  Then we headed back to our hotel to pick up our instruments for a rehearsal at our concert site. Since it’s raining today (mostly sprinkling), we couldn’t rehearse and play in the original spot - an open forum within an old building.  
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Cremona

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 We were able to sleep in this morning, which was great!  Gerard had to wake me up (that’s unusual).  He went off to breakfast while I enjoyed an espresso in our room, and he brought me back a croissant.  Good enough. Today was just a lazy kind of day.  Didn’t do too much.  Our 2nd group of people will be coming in later today, so our full orchestra will be here! We did wander out for some lunch, a cold one, and this! Awesome gelato.  Mine was the Nutella.  Took a while to eat these. We wandered a bit more and came across the Roman street they found in 1967 while working on another building.  It’s about 10-15 feet below current street level and is covered with a coloured glass, so it’s hard to see it and get a decent picture of it.  But it’s still there, intact, and apparently there was even a piece of the plumbing found, which was lead in those days.  No wonder the Roman Empire fell???  The Romans founded Cremona in 218 BC.  You can get better pictures online, if you’re interested. Lo
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Moving On

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 Sorry I didn’t do the blog last night.  By the time I got back to the room, I was whipped. Yesterday morning we got up, packed the last things in our bags, took everything downstairs, then grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, and off we went to catch the Alilaguna back to the airport.  Last views of Venice - the Doge’s Palace and clock tower, and what looked like a cruise ship, but it could have been privately owned - don’t know. After some waiting at the airport, we finally connected with the group who flew in and met our tour guide, Valeria, for the rest of the orchestra trip.  We boarded a bus and headed to the interior, to a town called Bassano del Grappa, about an hour away. We walked to our lunch spot in the heart of the town near the Ponte Vecchio (not the same as in Florence, obviously).  It has another name, Ponte Degli Alpini, as well.  It spans the river Brenta flowing out of the Alps.  And Gerardo on the bridge. We had some lunch just up the street from the bridge and befo
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