Pavia

It’s now one of my last weeks here in Milan. I’ve seen most of what Milan has to offer; its got some great museums, amazing architecure and beautiful parks. I’ve spent the majoriy of my Erasmus in Milan and not enough discovering Lombardy. Yesterday morning I saw a message in my Whatsapp goup chat from a friend if anyone wanted to do a spontaneous trip to Pavia. Obviously I said yes. My group of friends and I ran to the train and went to Pavia, not really knowing what there was to see or do.

After the 25minute train journey, we found out there that the Universita degli Studi di Pavia (University of Pavia) is one of the greatest in Italy and also where Christopher Columbs studied!

After strolling along the riverfront and along the Ponte Coperto, my friends and I really were not sure what to do next. We decided that the best way to see this city was to just get lost and not following a map. It seems like Pavia is full of narrow cobbled streets and many churches.

To get out of the sun, we nipped into the Duomo. Along with the great breeze it had, the Cathederal boasts amazing architecture and marble everywhere to acompany San Siro (St. Sirus). In the majority of the churches and cathederals around the world, the caskets are closed but luckily for my morbid and parculiar soul, San Siro’s casket was open. It was interesting because I was able to see his bones and the impressive clothes he was wearing.

During our last hour in Pavia we came across these the towers, otherwise know as Tre Torri. We had our guesses of what they could be, lookout towers? Chimneys? Much like Bologna’s towers, the Tre Torri in Pavia were built buy wealthy families to show how wealthy they are. In other words, the taller the tower, the wealthy the family.