Cremona Things to Do

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After coming off the bridge you soon come to these signs pointing to the hiking, strolling and cycling route along the right bank of the Po River.

There is no sign pointing to Busseto, but since the direction was right I took it, and it turned out to be an excellent and virtually car-free cycling route.

Second photo: Cars are only allowed on this route for a short distance, to reach a popular restaurant, but after this point the road is reserved for hikers, cyclists and tractors.

Third photo: Here's a sign marking the "percurso ciclotouristico" (cycling tourists' route) "Via Po", showing that it is open to hikers and strollers (note that they have two different symbols for these) and of course for cyclists, but off limits to cars. This route goes along a dike which is not directly on the river bank, but a ways inland, sort of a second line of defense against flooding.

Fourth photo: Looking back at Cremona from the cycling route along the dike.

Fifth photo: There is a smooth asphalt surface along the dike for ten kilometers or more. The surface turns to gravel shortly after you pass the village of Soarza, but continue on until you reach a place called Ongina, which is where the composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) used to raise horses. Turn right there, and ride south along a stream, also called the Ongina, to reach Villa Verdi and later the town of Busseto.

More of a park than a square, the Piazza Roma is the location of this statue of the Italian patriot, philosopher and politician Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872).

Mazzini's goal was to end foreign rule in Italy, and to achieve Italian independence and unity under a democratic government. When independence and unity were finally achieved in 1861, Mazzini was disappointed because the united Italy took the form of a kingdom, not a democratic republic. He died in Pisa in 1872.

This palace from the second half of the sixteenth century now houses the public library, the Civic Museum and Art Gallery, the Archeological Collection and the Stradivari Museum.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to visit any of these museums during my two short visits to Cremona, but here are the opening hours:

• Weekdays 9:00 - 18:00
• Sundays and holidays 10:00 - 18:00
• Closed on Mondays

Cremona's main theater is named after the opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli (1834 - 1886).

Ponchielli was born near Cremona at a place which is now called Paderno Ponchielli in his honor. After his studies at the Milan Conservatory he worked for a while as an organist in Cremona.

He wrote about a dozen operas, but the one that made him world famous was La Gioconda, which was introduced at La Scala in Milan on April 8, 1876. This opera was a huge success at its premiere and it quickly became a popular opera throughout Europe.

Today La Gioconda is the only one of Ponchielli's operas which is still performed at all regularly. I have never seen it on the stage, but I attended a concert performance of it recently at the Old Opera in Frankfurt am Main.

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Cremona is famous for its long tradition of violin making. It was started in the 16th century by a man named Andrea Amati, who is considered the inventor of the violin. Amati's sons and grandson continued the tradition, and the grandson Nicolò Amati was (probably) the teacher of the greatest of them all, Antonio Stradivari, who in his long life made vast numbers of violins, violas and cellos.

Stradivari is said to have built over 1,100 instruments, of which 650 still exist today. No one knows exactly why his violins sound so wonderful. The quality of the wood? The shape of the instrument? The thickness of the wooden plates in the belly and the back of the instrument? The varnish of the wood?

One theory is that the wood he and his contemporaries used was particularly dense because his lifetime coincided with the "Little Ice Age", when temperatures throughout Europe were unusually low. This caused the trees to grow slower and produce unusually dense wood.

Whatever the reasons, his Stradivarius violins are still considered to be among the finest ever made. In 2006 one of them was sold in an auction for over three and a half million dollars.

Second photo: The art of violin making has been passed on from one generation to the next for over four hundred years, and even now there are numerous violin makers in Cremona. The signs pointing to their workshops include the English translation, "Violin Maker," in case prospective buyers don't know what "liutaio" means.

Third photo: Here are some locally-made violins (but not very expensive ones!) on display in a window at the Tourist Information office.

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Opera was an invention of the Renaissance, starting around the year 1600.

Perhaps the world's first full-scale opera, or one of the first, was L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, composed in 1607. I have seen L'Orfeo several times in Frankfurt am Main and once, in a very different production, in Darmstadt.

Monteverdi was born in Cremona in 1576 and lived here for the first fifteen years of his life, until 1591. He probably received his first musical training at the Cremona Cathedral from the composer Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (1547-1592).

At age fifteen Monteverdi moved to Mantua, where he was employed first as a singer and viola player, later as the orchestra conductor, at the court of Duke Vincenzo I of Gonzaga. In his forties Monteverdi moved to Venice, where he spent the rest of his life as the musical conductor and resident composer at the Basilica of San Marco.

In addition to madrigals and other religious music, Monteverdi composed some eighteen operas, but the only ones that have survived are L'Orfeo from the year 1607, Combattimenti (1624), Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses, 1641) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea, 1642). I have seen beautiful productions of all of these in Frankfurt am Main in recent years (and Poppea also in Stuttgart).

Second photo: When I was in Cremona they were advertising a Monteverdi Festival, to be held in May 2008.

Third photo: Here's a photo from one of my Innsbruck tips, showing a portrait of Claudio Monteverdi along with some historical musical instruments at the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum.

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The Piazza del Comune is at the highest point of the town. The 11th century cathedral is here, along with other historic buildings called the Baptistery, the Loggia dei Militi and the Municipal Chambers.

When I arrived on a Saturday afternoon they were just cleaning up after a market that had been held there during the morning. There was newspaper stand on the square, where I spent EUR 7.90 for what turned out to be a very useful and informative guidebook to Cremona. (Published by Giramondo Libri s.a.s, Via Palestro, 44, 26100 Cremona.)

There is also a Tourist Information office on the square, which re-opened at three o'clock. There I was given maps of the city and province of Cremona, and the rather vague but still very useful tip that it was possible to cycle along the Po River to Busseto, rather than taking the main roads.

Second photo: The Bell Tower is right next to the Cathedral. It is 110.96 meters tall, according to my guidebook, and it was "presumably built in the second half of the XIII century, taking several decades for its completion."

Third photo: Guidebook and maps

Piazza S. Agata, overlooked by the church of S. Agata, of ancient foundation (1077), but completely renovated in its layout in the 16th century with a fine neoclassical façade (by L. Voghera, 1845), represents in an urbanistic sense, together with the Cittanova palazzo, the second town centre, arising in the medioeval era and hence outside the perimeter of the Roman city

Sant'Agata church was founded in 1077 and renewed in various ways, keeps the Roman bell tower; inside we can see the valuable picture of St. Agata (XIII century) and the frescos by G. Campi (1537).