Church of the Holy Introvert: Emilia Romagna, day 2

Day 2: My children are suffering. I am...not.

Today, a visit to the cathedral in Modena, a gigantic cemetery, and a farm where they make super authentic organic traditional cask-aged aceto balsamico di Modena.

What I learned:

- The Modena cathedral has, over one door, the oldest known sculpture of the legend of King Arthur. Also a bunch of Aesop's fables. I am fascinated and encouraged by the fact that the artists in the 12th century apparently didn't bother so much about whether these stories appear in the Bible or not.

- The Italians bury their dead above ground in sarcophagi, don't ever move them again (shocking to the ever-efficient Swiss, who only keep their relatives in the ground for 25 years), and use plastic flowers (also shocking to the Swiss, though this is possibly to avoid standing water, which breeds the dreaded tiger mosquito).

- the "balsam" in balsamic vinegar refers to the fact that it was originally used as medicine, though I'm not sure for what.

- one does NOT put super authentic organic traditional cask-aged balsamic vinegar on salad. Horrors!

Moving swiftly on to the photos:

Yes Dorothy, we're still in Italy.

Here's the cathedral in Modena. You can undoubtedly find better pictures online, but I liked this one because you can see how both the church and the tower are pretty wonky. There's been some settling in the last 800 years.

The doorway with the King Arthur legend (on the arch above) and some fables (below).

At another doorway, some possibly-Roman lions.

And over the north entrance, the early days of man...Adam and Eve look so goofy and embarrassed in the last panel, just as you would if you had to hold fig leaves over your private parts.

The wonders continue inside - this I sadly didn't capture well but it's stunning.

At the San Cataldo cemetery, the "house of the dead" by architect Aldo Rossi is supposed to be very high-concept but to me just looks a lot like the new apartments in our neighborhood...hmm...