From a side door, a slight man, immaculately dressed, slipped in, stood before us and without a word raised a violin and began the first of a few classical pieces: Vivaldi, Bach, Masini. In about thirty minutes he nodded and slipped away as silently as he’d entered.

It was a poignant moment. Not because of the music, because of the violin. It’s 297 years old, the creation of history’s greatest violin maker, Antonio Stradivari, who lived and worked in Cremona in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The violin played on that memorable day was made in 1715. It’s been played in Cremona virtually every day for centuries simply to assure its well-being. Its value is said to be about $5 million.

We reached Cremona in an hour by train from Milan. We took a room at The Hotel Impero, set on a medieval square dating to the 12th century.

The author, left, accepts an offer from violin maker, Philippe Devanneaux, to try the art of violin making.

The hotel is family owned, clean and efficient, and as Cremona is small, just steps from the cultural sites and tourism office. Each evening we’d walk five minutes to a restaurant we came to feel at home in: Albergo Duomo. It is obviously family run, where all the pastas, especially my favourite Arabbiatta, were not only affordable but piquant, with sauces that didn’t overwhelm the fresh pasta.

On our first morning my wife Barbara and I met with Elisabetta Riboni, of Cremona’s tourist office, outlining our plan for the days ahead, to visit the historic sites but also to drop in at one of the unique shops which makes the small city of about 70,000 rare in the world: the workshops of violin makers. There are about 150.

“There are many reasons to visit Cremona,” Riboni said, “but the first that people express is the history of the violin and its making today. Fortunately we can often arrange a visit to one of the workshops.”

Our guide was Francesca Bottini, one of the most experienced of professional cultural guides, whom we walked with the following day. She’s been a guide for 20 years and a member of the professional guides of the region.

Violin making is a craft from a medieval age, one for which Cremona is justly famous.

Cremona’s great cathedral with its high and world renowned bell tower.

The most eye-catching site is, as in many European cities, the cathedral. “If we climbed all the steps to the top,” said Bottini, “we would look out upon one of the most unique of the world’s surviving medieval cities.” When I asked if she’d climbed it, she paused, smiling and replied: “At least a hundred times, mostly with students.

Later we were to drop in on Philippe Devanneaux, a violin maker for 20 years. How many does he make a year? It depends on demand but usually about 12. Where do purchasers come from? Everywhere, Italy, Japan, the U.S., Canada and so on. What’s the price? On average about 5,000 euros ($6,500 Cdn) but, depending on choice, it can go to 10,000 ($13,000 Cdn). What are the three most important elements in making a fine violin? “The choice of wood. The feeling of the wood. The precision of the maker.” And then he added a fourth: “The passion of the maker.”

Cremona has a profound past. The making of its violins reaches back to the 1500s. The depth of Cremona’s legacy draws young creative people to come to live there, many being musicians or artists in fields other than the violin.

On a Cremona street: a likeness of its most famous citizen, the legendary violin maker, Antonio Stradivari

One is Daniele Palma who came from Puglia several years ago. He’s now a cultural administrator with the Consortium of Violinmakers of Cremona. “It’s a rare opportunity to be in Cremona,” he said softly as we talked. “Cremona is a town of music going back five centuries. I feel that for me, it is a very good thing not just from a professional aspect but a human aspect, just to live and work in Cremona.”

I met and talked with another young man with a rich past who feels just as deeply when I dropped in on Cremona’s beautiful Ponchielli Theatre, named for an opera composer from Cremona.

He’s Andrea Cigni, a performer and director, who came from Tuscany a few years ago, drawn in large part by a fact of history not well known: Cremona was the birthplace in 1567 of the man regarded as the founder of the grand opera, Claudio Monteverdi.

Cigni worked as a director in Florence and now teaches law for performing arts at Cremona’s Claudio Monteverdi Institute. As he guided us through the various levels of the theatre, providing at one point a rare view of its magnificent design, he spoke movingly of why he came: “I truly feel that for a person with my interest in drama, dance, music, Cremona is a place of very special enrichment.”

A day or so later — too soon — we boarded a Trenitalia train for a long trip elsewhere in Europe. But among the treasure of our memories from all our European travels, Cremona will be as vivid as yesterday. It’s engraved upon memory, a town in which the very cobblestones are touched by the nobility of the world’s cultural history.

The author expresses his gratitude to the Italian Tourism Board, for assistance in aspects of his research in Italy.

If you go

We flew to Milan, and used our Eurail pass (covering 15 days and acquired through Montreal-based ACPRail) for the one-hour train trip to Cremona. Our hotel, The Impero, can be reached at Cremonahotels.it. For inquiries on visiting Cremona, contact Cremona Tourism at: info.turismo@provincia.cremona.it. For rail passes: ACPRail.com