Follow Your Arrow

We traveled from Bologna to Cremona by train on June 4th and spent three nights in an apartment there. Cremona, another northern Italian city in the province of Lombardy, is about 100 kms east of Milan and 160 km west of Bologna. It’s a fairly small city of about 71,000 people and not on many tourists’ itinerary, which is one of the reasons we wanted to go there. Cremona is best known as the place where fine violins have been made since the 1500’s. The most famous of these violin makers, Antonio Stradivari, worked and lived in Cremona from 1644-1737.

We visited the Violin Museum, which is a must-see in Cremona. There we learned about the history of violins and their making; saw a collection of violins from the 1500’s to the 1800’s; and listened to violins being played in an immersive surround-sound dome – simulating what one would hear if sitting in the middle of an orchestra.

I am not a musician, but I do love music. And the violin – with its range of textures and sounds is quite special, in a class all by itself. One of the highlights of our time in Cremona was a concert – at the Violin Museum – where we got to hear a woman play a violin made by Giuseppe Guarneri in 1734. The violinist was so delighted to play this magical violin that we thought she just might bust at the seams. And what a joy for us to hear her play.

Besides its treasures of violins, Cremona is a sweet city. It’s a living city, not a tourist stop. We did not see a single hotel there. In our three days in Cremona we watched the same sets of people – walking their dogs, drinking their morning espresso, sipping their pre-dinner wine (their “apertivo”), and enjoying each other’s company. And we saw lots of people of all ages toting musical instruments around – presumably lots of violins, and cellos too.