Ferrrara: The Italy Diaries, Part IV

Castello Estense, Ferrrara

After our trip to Italy in the Fall of 2014 I wrote a few blog posts abut the trip( See So happy to be back in Veniceand Verona’s Magical Old Town.) But then I got so involved in politics and then gardening that I never finished posting my Italy notes.

My last post was about our trip to the incredibly beautiful Lake Garda.
We wanted to stay for forever at the lake side Villa Giulia but considering how expensive the wonderful hotel restaurant was, it was just as well we had to move on.

Then off to Ferrara. On my 70th birthday, I got an unpleasant surprise. I got an email from the hotel in Ferarra telling us that we didn’t show up last night and would be charged for the no-show. I checked my email confirmation and it turned out we had the date mixed up. I had booked for 9/29 rather than for 9/30 as I had intended. We got a room for 9/30 but would have to pay for both nights. Rick and I have been traveling together for over 30 years and have never screwed up the dates like this. What a horrible thing to happen on one’s 70th birthday--confirmation of how we’re losing it!

Our brief stop in Ferrara convinced us that we were too old for these one night stops. When we were younger we did lot of hopping about from town to town. But now we don’t have the energy.

Given our fondness for staying in medieval old towns, locating a hotel can be a real challenge. After we’ve settled into our hotel there’s at most a few hours of daylight left for sightseeing, and the next day we’re on the road again.We promised each other this would be the last trip with one-night stops.

Of course, the down side of staying 4-5 days in one town is that you're usually doing a lot of driving back and forth to nearby towns. Also when you are using one town as a base to visit towns in a region, you usually don’t get to see those other towns at night—essential to really get the feel of the town. But then you’re not dealing with the hassle of constantly changing hotels. Trade-offs, trade-offs.

We chose Ferrara because it was mid-point between Lake Garda and Fiesole. Ferrara was not a town I fell in love with but perhaps with more time I would have discovered more of its charms. The major sites are all within walking distance of each other, but we only had time for the cathedral and a brief walking tour of the old town. We did discover a charming reasonably placed restaurant in the cloister of Santa Anna Church. And our hotel, Horti Della Fasanara, situated in a very large garden was so charming, I didn’t mind so much that we paid for it twice thanks to our reservations mix-up.

Hotel Horti Della Fasanara
There are always mishaps in traveling but they’re particularly annoying when they are your own fault.