Haunted Lakeside Villages, Art Shows That Make You Go WOW, and All Sorts of Cats

What a full day, filled with a little bit of everything.

This morning I went back to Lake Como with a friend.  We started our adventures with a walk around Dorio and then a hike up to Mandonica, a medieval village that was abandoned years ago and supposedly is haunted.  Instead, we found sunshine:

, quaint churches:

, winter fruit:

, and cats on their honeymoon (this was seriously a scene out of the Aristocats movie… a couple of cats that walked up and down the entire village together, rubbing heads and interlocking tails on every corner.  Then rolling around in the sunshine together and finally falling asleep in one ball of sunshine fur):

Then we walked around Dervio, the next town south along the Lake Como shoreline.  In this town, we found a plethora of nativity scenes (Generate-Electricity-Yourself, Three-story Interactive, Chubby Animals Made out of Cotton Balls, and Seaside Christmas verions…) and some funky church doors:

And cat twins.  Not only did they look exactly the same, but all of their movements were identical- same motions, same expressions, same sounds.  After a while, it got a little too creepy and we moved on:

Then we drove on to Lierna, where we had a picnic on the rocks, in the company of swans that rather enjoyed pecking our shoes (and, in the continuing spirit of animal couples, being lovey-dovey):

One last stroll:

, and then back to the Milano world.  Last stop was HangarBicocca, which is an exhibition space between Monza and Milano with a permanent exhibit and two rotating show rooms.  In short, it was awesome… definitely deserves its own blog entry.  Permanent exhibition is The Seven Heavenly Palaces by Anselm Kiefer:

, and the temporary exhibits are The Visitors (by Ragnar Kjartansson) and Islands (by Dieter/Bjorn Roth).  The previous is a space surrounded by nine large screens; nine life-size rooms, each one with a different musician that, together, perform a song.  And you’re sitting in the middle of it and are surrounded by beautiful music and heart-felt performances and it’s pretty much the coolest feeling in the world.  The latter exhibition is a series of instillation work (and more), involving a room of projected images, a functioning bar, and interactive art spaces.  I am not doing justice to any of the displays with my descriptions, but I highly recommend that you check it out.

And now… time to crank up the thermostat, make some tea, and get started on grading this pile of art essays…