MyMan had a business conference in Ferrara, Italy for a few days last week. He was able to have a tour of the Castello Estence while he was there. It was dark when they did their tour, so some of the pictures are not as bright.
This is a large replica of the castle that is on display.
This family tree goes WAYYYY back to the 1200’s!
This tapestry is so lifelike!
Very ornate ceilings.
The castle kitchen and ovens.
Below the castle are the dungeons. They prisoners kept here were not ordinary criminals – those would have been held in the local jails. Ones kept here in the dungeons were high-ranking officials, or people who needed special surveillance.
This is a small doorway leading to the dungeons.
In this very tall room, they had scaffolds and bunks were many prisoners were held. The square holes in the walls are where the scaffolds were secured into the wall. They had ladders for prisoners to get up to the top bunks.
These are some messages written by prisoners that still exist.
There aren’t a whole lot of windows in this castle, but there are some that look out onto the square. You can see the castle is surrounded by a moat.
Back in May of 2012, Italy was hit with a 6.0 earthquake that killed at least 4 people and damaged older buildings and structures, including the castle. They are working on repairing the damage that was done to the castle, but it is costly and takes time. They have put paper squares along all the cracks in the walls and ceilings resulting from the earthquake until they are able to make the needed repairs.
After the tour, the team had a beautiful dinner party below the castle! 
The conference was over Wednesday afternoon, and MyMan made his way to Venice about an hour and half away, where we were going to meet him for the weekend. 
Since he got there a couple of days before us, he was able to walk around Dorsoduro (the area where we were staying) and check a few places out for us. 
He walked a lot, and saw some good museums
And not so good museums. 
But he was also able to figure out the whole water taxi transportation situation so he knew how it all worked by the time we got there!
From Here to There - A Move Across an Ocean 