Italy
In Winter
From Rome To Venice
- Page Two ~ By Matthew Atlee
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| Venice:
The next day
we headed for Venice with a short stop in Padua. Padua on New Year’s Day
was very crowded. We got off the bus and walked through the Prato della
Valle, which is a park filled with small canals and statues of famous Paduans.
None of the other people on the tour liked the park, but I liked it because
it had so many statues and was so flat. We walked a little way into the
town and stopped for a coffee – lots of coffee – and crossed the street
and went into the Cathedral of Padua. The cathedral was a live wire as
mass was being held and visitors pushed their way through the cathedral
to see the different works of art. The Paduans were very patient with the
hustle and bustle of visitors. The cathedral is an important place of pilgrimage
for Catholics in Italy, as St. Anthony, the friend of lost pets, is buried
there. People sat all around the church and listened to the priest give
his sermon as other peopled walked by and still others listened to the
sermon on headsets. We left after the long walk around the interior of
the cathedral. There were other important sites to see in Padua such as
the University which is the second oldest in Italy and the place where
Copernicus and Galileo studied, but time was tight and we needed to move
on to Venice. |
| Walter
was a great traveling companion. He taught me some of the finer details
of Mexican history. After our trip he sent me a wonderful book: Mexico:
A Traves De Los Siglos. |
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We drove to
the outskirts of Venice and lodged in the Hotel
Mondial in the town of Mestre. After putting our things in our room
we went to the hotel dining room and had another awful dinner at another
terrible hotel restaurant. After dinner we headed for Venice. It was too
late when we left – 7:30 or 8:00 - and by the time we caught the train
and took the ferry out to Venice it was almost 10:00. The only café
that was open was the Café Americana right on St. Mark’s Square.
The air was now cold and the winds were strong. We had a hot chocolate
and a sandwich and walked around some of the side streets off the Square,
but soon realized that one could get lost in Venice very quickly, especially
if there weren’t other people around to help direct you through the labyrinth
of streets. We made the long trip back to Mestre after only an hour in
Venice. But I liked that late night trip to Venice. Sitting on the ferryboat’s
outside seats and letting the cold air run through you while the lights
of Venice appeared on the horizon felt healthy.
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On
a coffee-high in Padua
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The
following day we headed for Venice in the early morning. Heading out to
Venice in the early morning one was awed by the ingenuity of the early
Venicians: the city was built on stilts in the middle of a lagoon so that
marauding Germanic tribes could not attack the inhabitants of the city.
These marauders knew nothing of shipbuilding and so the inhabitants of
Venice were safe from invasion. When other invaders came to pummel the
city, the Venetians pulled up the wood sticks in the lagoon that directed
boats to the city, leaving their would-be invaders clueless about how to
reach the city. Napoleon was the first foreigner to capture the city.
Venice was
flooded when we arrived. The Venicians call this Aqua Alta and in order
to disembark from the ferryboats and pass through the streets near St.
Marks Square you have to walk on raised platforms. St. Mark’s square is
dominated by St. Mark’s Cathedral. The inside of the Cathedral is covered
in the blue and gold of Byzantine and its five vaulted ceilings in the
form of a Greek cross seal the Eastern influence. It was in Venice that
for the first time in Italy, I felt the pull of Greece and Asia Minor.The
cathedral was followed by a tour of a glass-blowing factory. Just sitting
and watching the glass-blowers construct their works was relaxing. Many
on the tour broke out their money and spent it here. |
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We went to
lunch in a restaurant that was back and across a number of small streets.
It was late in the afternoon - 3:00 – and we were by now cold and hungry.
The winds picked up and the light from the sun became weak. It was during
lunch while eating great food and having a couple bottles of wine that
I began to relax and really enjoy myself. We were: one-North American;
one-Costa Rican; one-Mexican; and a Spanish couple. While I ate lunch I
saw an Italian couple talking with great intensity and eating at table
in front of ours; later I saw them at a café talking more; and before
we left Venice that night I saw them talking and eating at yet another
restaurant: Liked that.
When we finished
lunch we started to buy, buy, buy; it was like a fever: you didn’t know
if you would ever return to Venice and you wanted to take things with which
to remember the place by. The shopping bags began to fill with items like
exploding popcorn. We left Venice weary and our return to Mestre
was in the dark of night.
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The
next day we made the long trip from Venice to Rome. The only stop we had
that day was in San Marino. San Marino is a small independent republic
located on the eastern side of Italy that in the fourth century was a sanctuary
from persecution for Christians. The small republic is dominated by Mount
Titano, from which you can see the Adriatic Sea and all of the surrounding
Italian countryside. When you reach the top of San Marino you quickly realize
how the small state was able to protect itself from repeated invasions
by lords and nobles; the mountain is a natural hilltop fortress. Today
San Marino is a banking and tourist center and from what I could see the
people of San Marino seem to do quite well for themselves.
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From San Marino
to Rome was a long trip. The road cut through a dramatic landscape of sharp
treeless mountains and wild rivers. The river valleys went straight up
and on the other side of the road we were on you could see the old Roman
path north. After the wild river valleys, the landscape opened up and it
was now, for the first time, in this landscape of open space, that I wished
it were summer. Then the sun faded and darkness descended.
We said good-bye
to our traveling companions and headed back to Hotel One. We were tired
and wanted to rest. The next day would be the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel,
the Spanish Steps and the Coliseum. But that’s another story. In the end
Italy stays with you; it really never goes away. |
| Maricarmen
was a good friend and she and her husband were from Madrid: I was always
thinking about her eyes.. |
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