All posts filed under: Heritage Travel

Check Off Another One!

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My goodness, it has been a busy week of travel! Attend the Main Street Now 2016 conference on Monday and Tuesday in Milwaukee and get energized by all the work going on in downtowns across the country – check. Stop by and visit the amazing Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory Domes in Milwaukee – check. Catch a bad head cold and endure a 4 1/2 hour flight from Chicago to San Francisco – unplanned, but check. Have lunch in Carmel with one of the elder statesmen of preservation – the indefatigable Knox Mellon and his wife Carlotta – check. Celebrate the beginning of the construction phase of our work at Cooper-Molera historic site with more than 100 people from the city staff, California State Parks, our local stakeholders, and our development partners in Monterey – check. Over a wonderful dinner celebration in Monterey, talk baseball with the wife of one of our partners at Cooper- Molera, who has the perfect marriage…she’s a Red Sox fan and her husband is a Giants fan…so on the west coast …

I Do Love a Good Historic Hotel!

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After a long week of travel, it is good to land in a wonderful historic hotel for a couple of days of family time with Claire.  This beauty is the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, one of my personal favorites where I’ve stayed in the past when in Southern California. Have a great Memorial Day weekend.  As you kick off the summer, take the time to remember those who have sacrificed for our country. More to come… DJB

Chiaraviglio Apts

Observations from the road: “Final Rome edition”…for this visit

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As we prepare to leave Rome and head home, I have pulled together a few final observations about things we have seen while in this most fascinating of countries.  I’ll begin with the serious, and then move on to – shall we say – less serious thoughts that have popped into my head before returning to a final note of thanksgiving.  As always, these Observations From… posts are quick and quirky.  You’ve been warned! The Non-Catholic Cemetery is a treasure – Several people told us to make sure we visited the “Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome” (also known as the Protestant Cemetery), and we are so glad we did.  On the day we visited Ostia Antica, we walked across the street from the train station upon our return and spent a good hour roaming through this beautiful space. Here is a bit of the background, from the cemetery’s website: The Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners in Testaccio, Rome (to give it its full name) is also widely known as the Protestant Cemetery although it contains the graves …

Contemporary Art in Historic Rome (Continued)

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I believe it was those sage philosophers Rodgers and Hammerstein* who said, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.”  That describes our Friday in Rome. After seeing the stunning Santa Maria del Popolo in the morning (more on that later), we had planned to take in the Bernini statue The Ecstasy of St. Theresa  at Santa Maria della Vittoria and then walk down the street to see Francesco Borromini’s fantastic San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.  Both were closed.  Thankfully, I’ve seen San Carlo (and will try to get Candice there tomorrow).  But we were disappointed, and the gelato we had after our picnic lunch only partially brought my spirits back. However, as has been our practice, when we walk by a church or open historic building that we haven’t seen before, we’ll ask each other, “Do you want to go in?”  More times than not, we’ll say “yes” and head in to find some new hidden gem. We were walking back towards Trastevere when we passed Chiesa di Sant’ Ignazio (the …

Excavated street and buildings

A trip Into antiquity

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Earlier this week Candice and I found time to visit two sites that have taken us at least as far back as the 4th century BCE and up through the 7th century CE.  Both were fascinating while serving as good platforms for thinking about historic preservation past and future. On Tuesday, we walked through our neighborhood to get to the Basilica of San Pancrazio, where we had attended Palm Sunday services three weeks ago.  We heard a presentation the night before from one of the fellows at the academy on labor practices in the catacombs, and it stirred us to visit the catacombs under the basilica. San Pancrazio’s catacombs are one of the few in Rome that have been consistently visited through the ages.  The fact that they were not lost over the centuries has been attributed to the fact that pilgrims from the cult of St. Pancras consistently visited the site throughout the Middle Ages. (Pancras) came to Rome together with his uncle Dionysus after his parents’ death and was decapitated in 304 after …

Venice!

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I absolutely loved Venice. That’s not how I expected to feel following our first trip to the city.  For quite some time I’ve been hearing from people connected to all parts of my life (personal, professional, seasoned travelers, first-time visitors), and they inevitably mention the number of tourists, the limited number of “things to see” in the city, the cruise-ship impacts, the obvious effects of climate change, and the food.  (If I had a Euro for every time someone said, “You can’t get a bad meal in Rome and you can’t get a good meal in Venice,” I would have enough for at least one good meal in either city!) Our experience was very different. For one of the places on earth that can truly be described as unique, I went to Venice with relatively low expectations.  We arrived a week-ago Friday after a three-hour and forty-five-minute trip on the high-speed train. What a luxury!  Candice and I stepped out of the terminal and were only a five minute walk from our hotel. Thanks to …

Ceiling detail

The pleasures of Villa Farnesina

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If yesterday’s post – full of gruesome scenes of martyrdom from Santo Stefano Rotondo – turned your stomach, we found the antidote today in the pleasures of Villa Farnesina. Commissioned in 1508 by the wealthy Sienese banker Agostino Chigi and designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi, this suburban villa is at the foot of the hill from the American Academy in Trastevere.  We joined our friend Jeff Cody there for a guided tour and concert of Renaissance music on a beautiful Sunday spring day in Rome. The Wikipedia entry gives a good description of the difference between this suburban villa and an urban palazzo (or palace). Renaissance palaces typically faced onto a street and were decorated versions of defensive castles: rectangular blocks with rusticated ground floors and enclosing a courtyard. This villa, intended to be an airy summer pavilion, presented a side towards the street and was given a U shaped plan with a five bay loggia between the arms. In the original arrangement, the main entrance was through the north facing loggia which was open.  Today, …

At Prayer in Santo Stefano Rotondo

Three churches (part one)

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On Andrew’s last full day with us in Rome, he joined Candice and me in visiting three very different churches with widely varying histories, architecture, and art work.  It was a great introduction and send-off for Andrew, as we hoped to whet his appetite for future visits to the city. It turns out that we’ve had two tours, each consisting of visits to three different churches, this week. So I’ve titled this post “Three churches (part one)” and I’ll get to the other three in a later post. The first we saw with Andrew is one of the city’s best-known historic sites and regularly shows up on “must see” lists.  The second was recommended by friends at the academy as a “lovely and troubling space” rolled into one.  And the third was found entirely by accident (which is the way we often find hidden gems). The 12th-century Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano is a minor basilica  that consists of three separate buildings located one on top of the other and dating back to ancient …

Detail from Triumphs and Laments

Contemporary art in historic Rome

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One of the delights of spending time in the American Academy is having the chance to get to know artists – young, older, new to their craft, and famous – and to see their work through open studios, concerts, readings, and performances. Rome, simply, continues to inspire.  And isn’t that what preservationists mean when we say that we need old places because they provide continuity, serve as part of our memory, enrich our individual and civic identity, and inspire creativity? Candice and I have been privileged to get to know several of these creative and talented individuals who came to Rome to seek inspiration and to inspire others. The first people we met at the Academy four weeks ago were the talented graphic designer Michael Bierut and his wife Dorothy. Michael and I quickly reconnected, realizing that we had worked together on two projects through the years for the National Trust.  It was a treat to attend Michael’s lecture at MAXXI, where he spoke about his work based on his recent book How to use …