Seniors Enjoy Cremona, Italy

Get your coffee, we’re going to Italy this morning.  Ever heard of Cremona? Me either, but I came across the city in one of my many travel magazines and they were high on Cremona. Senior travelers will find Cremona in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River, with around 70,000 inhabitants. The Cremona Province consists of vast plains broken up by woods and large meadows that, thanks to the canals built by inhabitants in centuries past, has been transformed into an extensive, fertile countryside ideal for agriculture.

Cremona is especially noted for its musical history and traditions, including some of the earliest and most renowned luthiers, such as Giuseppe Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari, and several members of the Amati family. I read recently of someone who just gave $2 million for a Stradivarius violin.

Cremona was a wealthy, independent city-state for centuries and boasts some fine medieval architecture, with plenty of handsome villas and mansions strewn all across the city. The Piazza del Comune, the heart of the city, is where Cremona’s historic beauty is concentrated. It’s a classic example of how the religious and secular affairs of cities were divided neatly in two.

Seniors Find City Of Musical History

Cremona is famous for its production of high-quality violins and has a picturesque historic center with most sites clustered around the main square, Piazza del Comune. Seniors, the city is well worth a visit and can easily be seen as a day trip from Milan but is also a fine place to spend a night or two.

Brittanica notes that Cremonas was founded by the Romans in 218 bc on the site of an earlier Gallic village of the Cenomani. Virgil, the Roman poet, went to school there. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Cremona was repeatedly sacked by the Goths and the Huns before being rebuilt by the Lombards in the 7th century.

Beginning in the 16th century, Cremona became renowned as a center of musical instrument manufacture, with the violins of the Amati family, and later the products of the Guarneri and Stradivari shops. To the present day, their work is widely considered to be the summit of achievement in string instrument making.

Seniors Visit The Cathedral And Bell Tower

The Cathedral bell tower, or Torrazzo, is the second tallest brick tower in Europe and Europe’s oldest surviving tower over 100 meters tall. The Cathedral (Duomo) and the Violin Museum are among the first things most senior visitors find of interest.

Construction of the cathedral began in 1107 but it took almost 70 years to finish the construction due to a major earthquake. The School of Violin and Viola Makers features a museum of antique stringed instruments in the Palazzo dell’Arte.

When you are in Italy, plan to pay Cremona a visit. You will have many fond memories of your time spent there. -jeb