This is the 4th page of the travelogue of our May/June 2004 trip to Northern Italy, and the 2nd page of our cruise on the Po River. If you somehow missed the first page of the travelogue, click here: 1st Page.

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We departed Polesella, and cruised all night once again. The morning found us in Boretto, our transfer point to the city of Parma. Parma is known for its fine food, especially Parmesan Cheese and Parma Ham.

The Lombard-Ramanesque Duomo (Cathedral) is one of the greatest in Northern Italy. The Duomo is famous for the painting that fills its main cupola, The Assumption, (1536-3-) by Antonio da Correggio. The octagonal building is the baptistery, built in the 12 century.

Correggio's The Assumption.

Below, a Benedictine monastery, and some interesting paintings in the courtyard and library.

This map was on the wall of the monastery's library. It's interesting to me because it's of Southern Italy, where my ancestors were from. Two years before this trip, my brother, nephews, and I traveled to Verbicaro, the town in Southern Italy where both sets of our grandparents were born.

If you click on the map, you'll notice that it brings you to a much larger version, so that you can see the town names.

We woke up to a cloudy and somewhat rainy morning, and we were off to Cremona for an early morning tour.

Another day, another church. This time, Cremona's Duomo with it's bell tower, the highest in Italy, built in 1260. The tower has an astrological clock which was competed in 1583.

No kidding, by this time, I had enough of cathedral touring, so I waited outside while Roberta and our group were inside.

After the cathedral tour it was off to a violin maker's studio for a violin making demonstration. Cremona is the birthplace of the violin and home to the most-famous violin maker of them all, Stradivari.

The violin making demonstration was very interesting; and, after the demonstration we were lucky enough to hear a genuine Stradivarius played in Cremona's violin museum. The museum has very high security, and I was not allowed to take pictures. The estimated value of the Stradivarius that was played for us was $5,000,000.

The pictures below were taken while walking through Cremona's shopping area.

We were back on the ship by early afternoon, and on our way to Mantua and Verona. We cruised the rest of the day and arrived in Mantua’s port in the late evening. On this cruise, most of the ports were nowhere near city centers, so there was no real opportunity to just walk into a town and experience the local nightlife. It really didn't matter much to us, because we had been to Italy three times before, and we just wanted to relax.

The next morning, we woke up to another perfect day. After breakfast, we got on our tour bus for a drive to Verona.

On the banks of the Adige River, Verona was colonized by the Romans in 89 B.C. Its ancient center has many Roman ruins, second only to those of Rome itself. Today, the Roman heart of the city is easy to find, because the Roman Arena still sits in its center.

Tradition says that this is the house where Juliet lived, although there’s always been lots of discussion as to whether Romeo and Juliet ever existed.

There's the famous balcony and a statue of Juliet in the courtyard. We visited this house ten years ago. At that time, people were writing their names on her house. Now, people stick gum and love notes on it. Not very attractive.

We walked through Verona’s streets with our guide and stopped at Juliet’s house. At that point, I got separated from our group and royally lost. I knew that the group would eventually wind up at the arena, so I made my way there and found them.

A word on my picture taking….For the last several years, I’ve taken a lot of pictures when we go on vacation. I’ve also become very interested in video and video editing; so, now I carry a small video camera too. Between the still camera and video camera, I keep myself very busy. It took me about six weeks to put a 50-minute video of our trip together, and it took me two months to get all of my pictures on my web site in my spare time.

in the 1st Century AD and is one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters in Italy. Seating 25,000 people, it’s still in use and is the venue for Verona’s opera season in July and August.

The Piazza Bra is lined with cafes, government buildings and shops, but in the past it was a livestock market. After our tour of the arena, Roberta and I sat at an outdoor café in the Piazza for about an hour before getting on our bus and returning to the ship for lunch.

This day was a double tour day; so, after lunch, we were back on the bus headed for Mantua, which is billed as the “Most Romantic City in Italy.” Mantua, which is called Mantova in Italian, is bordered on three sides by lakes formed by the Mincio River. It flourished under the rule of the Gonzaga family. They occupied their palace in the 13th through 18th centuries, and it’s one of the largest in Europe. I decided that I had enough about 15 minutes into our tour of the palace, so I left the group and went outside to a café in the plaza. I’m glad that I did, because our group was inside for another hour and a half.

After our tour of Mantua, we were bussed back to the ship. As soon as we got back, the ship’s staff announced that there was a problem with one of the locks on the Po River, and that we would have to take the Canal Bianco (White Canal) all the way back to the Venetian Lagoon and Venice. This meant that we were going to cruise for 30 hours, and that we would miss a tour of Padua. That didn’t bother us, because we had been to Padua before. It also gave us the opportunity to sit back the next day and enjoy the scenery as we cruised on this small canal. I took that day off from picture taking, but I did take some video.

A short video of cruising on the Canal Bianco is below.