The Rome Diary

Hard to believe but this used to be at the end of my street

A long, long time ago when I was fresh out of University I spent a hedonistic summer kicking around Rome.  As much as I loved that summer and Rome I had never managed to go back until last week when yet another Italian holiday gave me four days of freedom and the opportunity to hop a train to the capital. 

My reintroduction to Rome began at Termini station and immediately the world was different.  The Termini of 1998 was a tired, dingy place where among the legions of tourists was a constant population of seedy characters.  Often I would find myself walking past a poor junkie on the way to oblivion with the needle still in a vein.  Today the place has been cleaned up, it’s all polished surfaces and bright shops with the same interior design that renders airport terminals bland retail nightmares.  Outside the station it was heartening to see that all of Rome hadn’t succumbed to march of consumer progress – the main bus station was as chaotic as I remember it.  It was always an endeavour finding your bus but with half the square ripped up it was a double drama.  Weaving my way passed bewildered visitors, taxis and impromptu stalls selling pope branded cigarette lighters and novelty aprons, breathing in the warm air mixed with petrol fumes I realised that the last place I felt to be this chaotic was New Dehli train station.  Given the situation I impressed myself by locating the 170 bus in minutes, on the bus driving past many an iconic edifice that for now was just a fancy traffic island I quickly realised that I was no longer in the reserved north.  As soon as the bus got moving people started to talking to each other by the end of the 20 minute journey my life story had been gleaned by the lovely (yet a little nosey) old ladies.

Off the bus I was met by my host the genial R.  I’d never met R before but he had offered to host me in exchange for an Indian meal – this cooking thing is proving most useful.  R lives in Trastervere which in 98 was my absolute favourite part of the city and after dinner we headed out for a walk and a few drinks.  It’s funny how memories play tricks on you and I always remember Trastervere to be a reasonably quiet place with the main part of the city being the place that was packed but Friday night Trastervere was heaving with people.  But it wasn’t my memory playing tricks rather having lived in Treviso for a year I have become desensitised to city life.  Suddenly I found public transport that ran past midnight a novelty! Taking a tram was exciting again, and I found the whole place amazingly noisy and the traffic – well that was something else. 

The Roman traffic is a dog eat dog world and for the pedestrian a daily trauma and your companion asking “are you ready to die?” as you negotiate a pedestrian crossing is a little disconcerting.  R explained that there is a procedure to crossing roads in Rome, if you cross while traffic light is green cars will most likely aim for you and you will die.  When the traffic light changes to red cars will still run the light but you can step out and drivers will do their level best to avoid you.  (and to think I used to make sure I crossed with a nun!) You must maintain your walking pace which allows drivers to anticipate your trajectory.  With this helpful advice I only managed to nearly get killed once over the whole weekend.

The first day and finally after what seems like weeks of rain the sun came out and I walked through Trastervere to the Vatican and my old street (not in the Vatican city but very close.)  It was a very nostalgic walk for me everything looked the same but different.  All those years ago you didn’t have to walk through metal detectors to enter the basilica.  Anyone who knows me and as my friends in Argentina can attest I have a love for religious kitsch and the streets around the Vatican provide me with ample fun – glow in the dark rosary beads, Vatican ash trays and the like, still nothing tops the pope bottle opener (or popener as I like to call it.)  

     

Sunday and after a couple of happy hours trawling the Porta Portese markets I accompanied my host to a birthday picnic in a park that was another favourite place of mine all those years ago.  My host failed to mention that the birthday girl is Australian and I found myself among a small expat Australian community.  It seems an age since I was in Australia and it was great to be back in the company of convivial Aussies and to not have to explain my cultural references for once! 

The thank you meal

Monday was the day when I finally had to pay for my accommodation and cook a feast.  After a long and lazy morning wondering the sights of Rome it was back to home to prep for the night.  Word of R having temporary live in curry cook had got around and there was going to be quite a little group for dinner.   As I got down to cooking my host went about documenting the process taking a seemingly endless number of photographs – me chopping onions, me rubbing spices into meat, me throwing spices into a dish, me stirring dish and so on and on.  As the evening wore on the kitchen filled with wonderful smells and expectant faces and I’ve never had so many willing sous chefs.  It being a warm evening we ate on the terrazzo.  The food was a hit and there were more than one suggestion of a Rome relocation (although I’m not sure Trevisans are willing to give up their Indian cook.) My Roman weekend finished in the best way – sitting outside on a warm evening and sharing food with lovely people.  The next morning there was just enough time for a morning coffee with my host before it was back to Termini and the frecciarossa back to what now seems a terminally quiet Treviso.  I can’t quite believe I left so long between visits and only hope I don’t leave it another 14 years before I’m back.

Radicculous

Every week on our – would rather have our fingernails removed without the aid of painkilling drugs than do this – journey to the mineral powder company we take a road called the “Strada del Radicchio.”  Yes the road is named after a bitter red vegetable that is synonymous with this part of Italy.

We all know (at least that is the assumption I’m working on) that different areas of Italy are famous for different wines and different dishes but the regions are also famed for local vegetables and here in the Veneto it’s radicchio that rules supreme.  Before I came here I only thought of it as a much loved salad ingredient and only knew of a single variety but my time in Treviso has been a bit of a radicchio learning curve. 

There are a bewildering number of varieties of the vegetable and every town in the state seems to lay claim to one.  The round version that is most readily available in Australia known at Radicchio di Choggia – a small town on the Venetian mainland.  A pale variety is the claimed by Castelfranco, a small town near Treviso, slightly further afield  Trieste has its own radicchio and course there is a Radicchio di Treviso which looks like an oversized red endive. Every Autumn the coming back into season of radicchio is a cause of major celebration and many town piazzas are carpeted in the stuff welcoming it back into culinary lives of the people. According to my sources (uncle Wiki) radicchio has been cultivated in the region since the since, at least, the fifteenth century and recently farmers in the area have sought to have the certain varieties given protected geographical status (whatever that means.)  In fact the famous red colouring is a relatively modern occurrence with a Belgian agronomist (whatever that may be) engineering the pigmentation.

I’ve always loved the vegetable for its bitter taste and deep red colour and it was rare salad that didn’t involve some radicchio.   Since my arrival in the Veneto I have been introduced to the many other uses of the vegetable.  Indeed at times it feels almost as any dish is incomplete without a radicchio component, it’s in lasagne, risotto, in pasta dishes, on pizzas,  in sandwiches, on chicheti (venetian tapas) and the list goes on.  Being here for a while renders you at the mercy of the stuff – it really is everywhere, so much so a good few of my expat friends have reached a stage of Radicchio overload and refuse to eat any more.  T who has been here for two years now can barely look at the stuff let alone eat is.  I hope never to get to that stage and intend to broaden my radicchio repertoire beyond salads – I’m currently wondering what curried radicchio would be like..... 

P.S. credit for the title of this post goes to JH - I blatantly ripped it off him.

Out of town

At the end of a narrow street you are
greeted by the dome

 My Friday lessons being cancelled was a bit of a double bonus – first J and I wouldn’t be making painful journey to the mineral powder company and two I got myself another long weekend.  To celebrate I hopped on a train and spent the weekend kicking around Florence.  I first visited the place about 16 years ago during my first Italian sojourn and I haven’t been back since, then I was a backpacker staying in hostels and saving every penny or lira as it was then, for museum entries and cheap meals.  This time thanks to lastminute.com I was able to splash out on a reasonably priced hotel.  Having booked the weekend on a whim I was rather dismayed to read the weather predictions were for three days of rain but you know it takes more than precipitation to kill my mood.

After so long in Treviso, Florence at first seemed like the big city – which it most definitely is not.  Traffic suddenly seemed deafening and the crowds overwhelming.  Thankfully my hotel was on the river in a more peaceful part of town.  Not only famed for its beauty Florence was the centre of the renaissance and as a result of a couple of rich families playing a game of artistic one upmanship the city is a treasure trove of art, sculpture and architecture.  With the Uffizi and Academia being just two of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of museums where does the bewildered traveller start?  Me? Well I started in a very Raji fashion at a junk market (I visited both the Uffizi and Academia on my last visit and so felt I could give myself a free pass this time.)  I love riffling through stuff other people no longer want so if there’s a flea market about you will most likely find me there -  in fact I could write a book called flea markets of the world except I want to keep the good ones a secret.  The Florentine one while small was packed with some gems; old postcards and records, furniture from anywhere between the late 1800s to now, clothes and various household goods. The flea market allowed me to indulge my love of early 20^th century ceramics with the purchase of a pair of gorgeous art deco coffee cups – the fact that I managed the haggle in Italian will make the using of them all the more satisfying. 

Brunelleschi’s dome is, of course the famous symbol of the city and walking about the city you catch glimpses of it at the end of the endless narrow streets.  The cathedral that it sits atop is a beautiful piece of renaissance architecture given that the heavens threatened to open any second I decided against climbing to the top of the dome and focused more on viewing the interior.  Inside I found it quite plain but then again next to the rich decoration of San Marco everything seems plain. 

After a pretty awesome dinner where yet again my eyes were greedier than my stomach I was intending to have a bit of a night time walk and find a nice bar for a pre bed digestive but walking through Piazza dei Signori I was delighted to find that the Palazzo Vecchio was still open.  I’ve always thought museums should be open in the evenings and when I lived in London I would often visit museums at the end of the day – in the last hour when they were usually empty and of course free.   So Instead of a drink I digested while wondering around the sumptuous rooms of the Medici palace being so late I practically had the place to myself and could get lost in the paintings and the admire amazing craftsmanship without feeling the need to move on.   

Day two and the rain that had mercifully stayed away the day before arrived and when I woke there was a light but consistent drizzle.  My first stop was coffee and a wander around the central produce market which I can only describe as the Queen Vic Markets on steroids.  As I took my morning coffee surrounded by market workers with tired craggy faces I felt a bit out of place sipping my cappuccino as they, nearly all to a man, drank large slugs of Jameson’s – I’d like to think that by 9 am they have pretty much done a full days work....maybe?  The markets themselves are a wonder to behold with colourful veggies and great stacks of dried mushrooms and tomatoes.  A host of olive oils that I wish I had the ability to bring back with me.  As well as all the wonderful local produce there was a healthy smattering of ethnic stalls selling jackfruit, different varieties of chilli and other goods rendering the produce market reason enough for this foodie to move to Florence.  

   

The Tower peaks out from behind the cathedral

After the markets I caught a train to Pisa to see the tower. As famous as the tower is and as many images as I have seen of it I was surprised that on actually seeing it there in front of me my first reaction was “blimey! it really does lean.”  Even without its precarious tilt the tower would be another jewel of the renaissance but in my opinion the lean gives the thing a bit of character – almost as if it’s saying I’m not going to be like all the others.  No one seems to mention the cathedral which is surprising as it’s stunning and unusually for renaissance churches it has a beautiful mosaic above the main alter.  The town itself was lovely to walk around (would have been better without the rain though) and full of surprises – like a large mural by Keith Herring – I’m sure many people know it’s there but it was a complete surprise to me. 

After a good few hours of walking the drizzle that had turned into rain finally defeated me and it was back to Florence and a brief rest before venturing out for dinner.  Now being a solo traveller there often times in new places when I’m out at alone.  It seems a shame to miss out on the night time vibe because you don’t have a partner to drink with.  After years of practice I can now say that I have a bit of a nose for a good friendly bar and that night I found another one of those, a lively place where the bar staff are make you feel at home and chat.  Unfortunately I was so tired from two days of walking and not much sleep in the days leading up that I couldn't stay for more than one drink before I had to get back to my hotel and collapse.

The Sun finally came out

It was strange walking about and having memories from 16 years ago – that was the place where I got gelati, that was the hole in the wall place that did the awesome sandwiches and the so cheap it’s practically free wine.  I didn’t remember so many tourists or maybe I just wiped them from my memory but the place is awash with them – not that they don’t have a right to be there I just wish they would walk a bit faster.  After three days of walking I’m ready for a rest.  As I write this on the train back to Treviso I realise that it’s been a while since my legs have that post sightseeing tiredness – it’s always a pleasant feeling but never the less I’m looking forward to a shower, bed and of course visiting the next place.

One year and all that

Last week I took a Saturday wander to the mountain town of Asolo.  It was a lovely warm sunny spring day and my thoughts turned back to my last visit this way which was in my first few weeks here when I seemed to spend every weekend in this part of the Veneto.  Thinking back to those first few weeks it hit me – I’ve been here a year – what do I do now?

I can hardly believe it but this blog is now a whole one year old.  I started this as a way of letting dear ones keep up to date with the events of Raji world and ease my guilt about sending what I always feel is a self indulgent email detailing adventures – yes I understand the notion of a blog is self indulgent but you dear reader do have the choice of venturing to the rajisphere or not.  I never gave a thought to complete strangers finding my adventures worth reading but to my great surprise I have a bit of a following so I would like to take this opportunity to extend a welcome to my German, Russian, Ukrainian and American readers – it’s good to have you aboard.  To celebrate the one year this blog has a whole new look and a new subtitle – I figure I can no longer call it adventures of a year in the Veneto. 

As with these kinds of anniversaries one has a tendency to look back over the year and assess just what the hell it’s been like.  Looking back from the position of now being quite established here I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been hard.  Travelling through countries alone has never been a problem for me but living in a place without a support network was harder than I had imagined.  Many things were surprisingly easy and fell into place quite fast – finding work and a place to live etc (although sufficient credit needs to be given to forward planning.)  Staying in one place has been a strange adjustment, prior to this Italian year I hadn’t managed to stay in one spot for more than five months, looking back my life over the past few years has been very chaotic so having a base has been refreshing even if at times I have craved an adventure.  Small town life has also been a bit of an adjustment.  

Trevisans have proved a hard nut to crack being used to the casual inclusiveness of Australians having to negotiate a more reserved population has been difficult.  Many of my expat friends are here due to relationships and these connections have helped them find their social way.  Italian society is so family focused that my living solo, without family or relationship has rendered me a bit of an exotic creature, at times I have felt more like a visiting alien than an expat.  It is only recently that I have begun to feel a little more established here.  

As for life in a little town where nothing happens well that has proved quite pleasant, Treviso is such a pretty peaceful place that while the life is a million miles away from the world of gigs, exhibitions and festivals of Melbourne I haven’t felt the boredom that I had expected.  Ok this is in part due to long working hours – when you finish work at 9.30 at night all you have time and energy to do is go home, eat and fall asleep while reading.  Of course having Venice so near has kept me occupied.  Whenever I get an attack of the lonelies or find myself needing some thinking time I always head to Venice for a bit of a soul revival.  Even after a year I still feel excitement whenever I step out of the train station to see the city in front of me – I had expected to become inured to its beauty but it still takes my breath away and perhaps always will.      

I’ve learnt many things about myself this year – one that I can cook!  This probably sounds stupid but before necessity demanded that I get down to some serious ethnic cooking I used to describe myself as burning water!  Two that I enjoy my own company, I’ve lived alone for a full year now and still enjoy it – pottering around by myself, knowing that any mess is my mess, playing music that I like it’s all been fun, yes there I times you wish there was someone to talk to but on the whole solo living has much to recommend it.  Three; I’ve learnt that I really, really need a home, a sense of family and some stability – this has been yearning that has been growing for some time now and as much thought as I’ve given problem I still have no idea of where my home is – should I go back to Aus, can I make it in Italy or try somewhere new?  I had hoped that the truth would reveal itself over the time but I’m as confused as ever and now very tired of the problem – if anyone can help me out on this one I’d love to know!

Italiano

Having dark hair and dark skin I am often mistaken for Italian and there’s been many a time when a local has launched into conversation with me thinking I'm able to discuss the finer points of Italian life.  Until recently I’m sure my expression was more akin to startled bunny than the sophisticated woman of the world look that I try to project!  But lately my language skills have been showing unmistakeable signs of life.

As an English teacher I’m used to seeing people getting to grips with a new language and I am deeply in awe of anyone who does it.  My own endeavours with Italian have always seemed doomed to failure and often at times I feel as if I’ll never say a sentence without making some howling error – resulting in at best miscommunication and at worst outright derision.   I’m not naturally a good student and always manage to find some kind of activity to avoid head in exercise book time (I must just clean the oven, do the shopping, make a cake etc, etc.)  I’ve often felt a bit of a fraud for giving my students tips and suggestions for study that I never do myself.   At the end of a draining 12 hour day the last thing I want to do is open an Italian text book and get down to some book learning. 

When I arrived here last year many of my Italian friends had a good laugh at my attempts at the lingo so much so that I seemed to have developed a block or lack of confidence in my ability to get to grips with the language – word of advice people encouragement is not mockery.  But as I say to my students you need persistence and an understanding that it’s ok to make mistakes.  I have suffered for my language attempts – yes I have been watching Italian television, yes it’s pretty bad and I am a little embarrassed to say that I got a bit hooked on masterchef Italia but for the most part it’s the history channel that’s been my language immersion vehicle. 

Slowly from the soup of noise words, then phrases and finally sentences began to emerge.  I have begun to notice that I longer look at encounters with officialdom with trepidation; exchanges at the supermarket have become more conversational.  A few weeks after Christmas on a night out with friends we bumped into an Italian friend who speaks near perfect English (and when I say near perfect I really mean it, not only is he grammatically acurate, but has a shockingly perfect accent and can use colloquial English correctly.)  That night for the first time and I’m not sure why we spoke in Italian and yes I made many mistakes but my meaning was clear.  The next day J beamed and said my language skills had come a long way in the six months she’s known me.

Last week and after a story too long to go into I ended up at a birthday party where not a soul spoke English – in situations such as these my only tip is get in there and speak to as many people as you can.  For the first time I noticed that not only was I speaking Italian without much difficulty but I wasn’t thinking in English and then translating into Italian!  That’s the mythical step I tell my students about!  When an English speaker did turn up we still spoke in Italian.  This guy was a passionate traveller like myself and we talked about places we had both been to and places we’d love to visit – so beyond the where are you from, what are you doing talk that I was convinced my Italian was stuck at.

After an evening of Italian with not a word of English I had the pleasant confirmation that indeed my Italian has “got somewhere.”  While I’m nowhere near discussing the metaphysical significance of Murakami’s parallel worlds I can now at least hold a conversation.  There are those with whom I’ll always speak English – once you start in one language you seem to continue but let’s hope I continue to make progress.  

A Special Guest

Recently I’ve had the absolute joy of a visit from my dear friend K.  Introduced by a mutual friend while in Melbourne K and I quickly became fast friends with a shared love of travel, museums, words, fabrics, op shopping and cocktails.  As ever when I get a visitor a Raji tour of Venice is a must and seeing as K is a blogger herself she has written this piece describing a little of Raji’s Venice.

 

K my guest blogger

Friday night, and the Hotel San Gallo had been located just off St Marks Square, after about an hour negotiating maze of streets, canals and tourist-crammed walkways. (K was on her own here hence the hour – arriving after work I took 20 mins to get from the train station to hotel)

Our first action in Venice was to go out for coffee in San Marco. Coffee  punctuated our time here, as did aperol spritz and prosecco, the Italian bubbly. I could liken the weekend to a 3 day pub crawl, but I won’t—because having entered the Rajisphere, it’s more accurate to liken it to a personalised historical tour—with beverages. (really people I don’t drink that much-*fighting the tide of perception*)

After returning to our bright & comfy room with pressed metal ceiling and glass chandelier, we got a bit dolled up and hit the town. Rather than give you the blow by blow (or drink by drink) account, here’s an overview of what our evening included:

A quick giro (tour) through the basilica of San Marco, resplendent in gold Byzantine style mosaics and elegant marbled surfaces, with one pulpit for the priest, and another specially for the Doge, being the important person that he was.

Looking a little serious? or just thinking about the next bar?

 A bar Raji had recently spotted from the other side of the Grand Canal. The view of the Rialto Bridge from its own jetty was very nice. Not many establishments would have this view and still charge single figure prices for refreshments.

A fabulous little shop where I bought Venetian-made boots (who else has a tour guide with a built-in knowledge of one’s taste in footwear?!) (we aim to please!)

 A detour to see Marco Polo’s house. Here I learnt that the small piazza where it is located has the word ‘million’ in its name because of Snr Polo’s post-travel tendency to say ‘Oh I saw millions of those in (insert exotic discovered destination)

A visit to MiTi cocktail bar, acclaimed venue for a certain person’s recent Indian cuisine night, which was such a success she is being asked to give up her day job. (very kind of you to say but am a long way from giving up working for a living.)

Dinner at a place called (if translated into English) Paradise Lost, situated on a long canal in – ok let’s try this – Miseriacordia? (In Cannaregio on Fondamenta de la Miseriacordia but kudos on the spelling)  In the most northern segment of the main Venetian isles anyway.  Raji had phoned to book but the woman on the other end snapped ‘give me a name I can understand’. Hence we arrived to find our table for two booking for ‘Roberta’. Here we indulged in a fabulous seafood starter and some rather good pastas, while our neighbouring table had a huge cheese wheeled to the table (on a trolley, not by itself) by the chef who then ladled out  their pasta sauce from its molten interior. (I have never seen a cheese become its own serving vessel before. )

The night wouldn’t be over without a sambucca or three at the bar owned by Raji’s ‘Venetian Dad’ – a cheeky imp of an old dude who told us about dealing with the Acqua Alta (the once yearly spring tide that floods Venice) and who declared proudly that he was born there and so he’d die there.

Thank goodness I had brought a packet of NZ-made homeopathic hangover remedy Drink Ease, as we each knocked one back before going to bed at 2am. After waking with a reasonable clear head, I continue to swear by these.  (anyone else visiting from the Antipodes please bring additional supplies)

Our Saturday contained much wandering and crossing of bridges, and excessive photo-taking myself.

At the Rialto Market we rummaged happily though trash and treasures, alongside the fish & produce market that has been operating since the tenth century and is in danger of closing down due to ‘progress’. (danger thankfully now averted)

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum via the Accademia Bridge. I had never made it during my last visit to Venice n 1997, so it was delightful to experience it at last. It’s a small yet wonderful gallery, displaying not only Peggy’s collection, but photos of this radical lady in these rooms when they were her residence. I was moved to see her final resting place in the sculpture courtyard, where w also wrote a wish and impaled it on Yoko Ono’s ‘Wishing Tree.’

I wanted to take to the water in some form, and having already experienced a gondolier ride back in ’97 (albeit packed with a roudy Contiki group), we took an evening vaporetto ride. This is essentially a “bus” that travels the Grand Canal with numerous stops enroute. A ride after dark enabled us to view the mansions’(palazzi) piano nobile. No not a noble piano, but a floor or room of displayed grandeur. The lights are left on and the curtains drawn back to display a room’s gorgeous chandelier, paintings etc. My tour guide informed me that money is (was) poured into the presentation of these rooms, while the rest of the residence might be quite shabby.

Sunday morning coffee - Camera did a strange thing with
perspective here, I'm not THAT small

Sunday started with much-needed coffee in the sun, people-watching at the Rialto market. Then we just had to browse the stalls again, this time taking in the antiques in the fish market area. We followed this with a journey on foot to the Castello district. If you look at a map of Venice, you’ll see a green area out at the eastern tip. This was once home to the military and is now the site of the Venice Biennale (which is due to start soon) It is also home to many Venetians, being the quieter and more residential, not  so frequented by tourists. One aspect that was present was laundry drying on lines strung high across the narrow streets. From table-cloths to jumpers to undies, silhouetted against the sky or reflected in the canals. Naturally the residents’ smalls became content for our photo albums.

On our walk through the Castello, we were also stopped by some striking photos in a window—including the ‘Muppet orchestra’ that was noted recently in this very blog.(they've not yet made it to these pages) Inside we went, where we chatted to a Ukraine-born Jew who now had his workshop based here, where he skillfully added pop culture icons to historical uniformed portraits. We also loved an image of Yoda in Japanese army uniform. The photographer’s studio floor was covered in photos of the last ‘baby’ born in Chernobyl—now a young woman, standing in a decrepit room looking at the rusting cot she was born in. The photographer told us he is taking part in a project to artistically document the decomposing Chernobyl, and showed us a clip of his photos set to music – a vivid depiction of how a place decays once devoid of humans. Books had fallen to floors and become a strange curling carpet. Dust and soil had become so thick on exterior window sills that trees had taken root there. It was very moving .Here's a link to those haunting images

A peaceful Castello

I was also moved when we reached the furtherest point in the Castello that we could go. A quiet space in front of a church, with grass, a bridge, the gentle creak of many moorings, the open sea just beyond, and very few people.  A woman threw crumbs to a gull from a jetty that lead straight from her back door. It was very peaceful, and I understood Raji’s love for this city and its incredible history. During the weekend she imparted a whole lot of this to me and made my stay about 100% more interesting than visiting on my own.   Thanks Raji!

It was time to say goodbye to the gondoliers in their stripey jumpers, boater hats and leathery faces, the magnificent San Marco square with its population of tourists and pigeons, and the several thousand shops devoted to selling carnival masks. I feel so lucky to have had a glimpse beneath that touristy surface, thanks to yours truly who has all this just under an hour away. Our stay ended with a final stop at MiTi (we’d probably popped in here about 4 or 5 times over the weekend) and a vaporetto ride to the railway station.  Did I mention we also had bee-yootiful blue skies the whole time?  The icing on the cake.

It was a joy to share such a wonderful place with a good friend.  K left Italy yesterday and I already have the post visit blues.  I often wish Australia was geographically closer. It’s hard having the things you love most so far apart.  Thank you K for your visit and for a lovely weekend in Venice.

Opposites and extremes

Just before we all headed our separate ways for Christmas a bunch of us were having goodbye drinks in Treviso.  A passerby – who looked much like an extra from This is England stopped and said a few words to T. “Who’s that?” I asked to which T replied “Oh just a fascist.”  The strangest thing was that I didn’t bat an eyelid, by now I had seen enough fascists for it not to register with me.  In my recent experience  and being a bit of a lefty when a person is described as a fascist it is usually a jokey reference to voting for the Conservatives in the UK or supporting Tony Abbott in Aus but here fascist means fascist.  Italian politics is a seemingly impenetrable world of alliances and factions that one is exhausted just looking at it let alone trying to understand it.  One of the strangest things to me is the fact that factions and ideologies that the rest of the world has consigned to the past are still political forces here today.

 

Of course every country has their bone headed (Nick Griffin or Pauline Hanson anyone) extremist elements it’s just that I’m not used to people being so open about being pig ignorant.  It was not long into my working life here when a student happily told me he was fascist and I’m a little ashamed to say that I was so taken aback that I didn’t challenge his opinions.  Yesterday Treviso was in full St Patrick’s day celebration (go figure) and the place seemed full of skin heads and I mean full drainpipe jean and bomber jacket wearing skinheads.  Now most people here in Treviso are perfectly lovely, progressive thinkers but there is no denying that this far right element is tolerated.  I once asked an Italian acquaintance about this and his theory was that after the fall of fascism in Italy instead of going through a process similar to the denazification of Germany the Italian fascist parties simply changed their name and carried on in Politics.  Political discourse here in Italy at times has shocking levels of overt racism – I can’t think of another country where the leader of a political party could get away with calling people from Africa “bingo-bongos.”

The Communist club Venice

At the opposite side of the political spectrum is Venice which is staunchly left.  Maybe it is because as a port city Venice over the many hundreds of years got used to the mixing of different peoples or if they are just pragmatic enough to take money from anyone.  Many of my Venetian friends are proudly communist and abhor the proto fascist parties that Berlusconi legitimised by bringing into government.  Those that aren’t communist are most definitely to the left of the divide.  Recently a date attempted to “show” me around Venice only to be disappointed when I knew the place almost as well as he did.  After dinner he said he wanted to introduce me to a true Venetian character an old died in the wool communist – sadly this was yet another fail on his part as the died in the wool communist is my old friend L who I met on my first day on Venice 3 years ago.  Stepping into the back room of L’s bar leaves you in no doubt as to the political affiliation.  The walls are covered in flags and pictures from a lifetime of activism. 

     

I find it so amazing that two places that I know so well can be so politically different but then again having most recently lived in countries where the left and the right have so blurred as to become effectively the same party it is strange to come across such a pronounced divide.