Lin and Sandy Grimwade's Blog: Italy In June

After a wonderful week in Corfu with 15 members of our family, Lin and I took a ferry from Corfu to Igoumenitsa on the Greek mainland then a 20 hour voyage on an Italian ferry from Greece to Ancona on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The ferry was quite new and comfortable — we had a cabin with a shower. Most of the other passengers were truck drivers…all tough looking guys from Bulgaria, Serbia, Germany, Poland, etc., who slept on the benches in the ship’s bar.

Ancona, itself, is primarily a port though it has a few interesting corners. It was very seriously damaged during WWII by American bombing, as it was an important port when Italy was occupied by the Germans. Our hotel had obviously been THE place to stay — the Grand Hotel Palace — with 20 foot ceilings and elaborate plaster cornices. It was wonderfully comfortable and after wandering round looking at a few interesting churches, we stopped at a nice little restaurant in the main square for dinner. We were entertained by the owner “attacking” the marauding pigeons with a high powered water pistol. After a quiet, non-rocking and rolling night, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet where we bumped into a group of young American women working in Ancona this summer; one of them had gone to the same high school in Dublin, Ohio as grandchildren Leah and Evan.

Our next step was northwards on wonderful Italian high-speed trains to Venice. We sped at 120 mph through coastal towns, some of which I remember visiting in 1962 when my mother and 4 children including me visited Italy in a Fiat 500 Giardinera. We were so impressed by the immaculate farms and towns of the Po Valley, and we even crossed the Rubicon (though going in the opposite direction to Julius Caesar).

WOW! Venice is a completely weird and crazy city, different from anything we have ever seen — water everywhere and no cars. Directly from the station, we struggled with waterbus timetables, balky ticket machines and nervous tourists, but eventually found the right waterbus to the right “busstop” and then walked dragging our suitcases over hump-backed bridges to a charming little B&B for the next three nights.

So much has been written about Venice that there is little more to say. It is a crazy patchwork of tiny streets, alleys, passageways and bridges, interlaced with canals of many sizes. The buildings go from vast grand palaces to tiny houses squeezed into oddly shaped gaps. Some are immaculately maintained, others are so dilapidated it is surprising they are still standing. There are virtually no straight lines. We were pleasantly surprised, after hearing horror stories, to find that the streets were relatively quiet and free of visitors. Even St Mark’s Square — the focus of much tourist activity — was almost empty. Our first evening we spent wandering round, dazed by the sights and sounds, and being regaled by gondoliers hoping for our custom. Their beautiful sleek black and elaborately decorated boats were everywhere.

With so much to see, what to do? We discovered almost by accident that the Venice Biennale of Art is taking place this summer so every church, palace and public space was given over to art exhibits. There are also two huge venues in the southeast of the city where the major exhibits are located. Our first day we visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (remarkable private collection of early 20th century art, and a lovely garden), a serendipitously discovered and fascinating exhibition on the history of maps (sponsored by Saudi Arabia!) in an old convent, and the mindbogglingly enormous Doges’ Palace, with the biggest oil paintings anyone has ever seen, mostly extolling the virtues of various Doges, who seemed to be portrayed as only slightly less important than Jesus and the saints. We were also amused by the “complaints letterbox” where ordinary citizens could post anonymous complaints about the behaviour of Venetian officials.

As we left the Doges’ Palace in the evening there was something going on with large numbers of police holding back the crowds to keep us away from some VIPs in expensive suits waking through the St Mark’s Square. Later at dinner on a small canal, our restaurant was occupied by 25 riot police, with helmets and shields who all seemed to be enjoying a nice Venetian meal. Apparently the mayor of Venice needs a huge protective force wherever he goes. He is so unpopular because he has introduced a “tourist fee” of 5 Euros a day for everyone who visits Venice on Friday to Monday and it is making it more difficult for locals to make a living as fewer tourists are visiting.

The next day, we decided to go for it, and visit the Venice Biennale in the old Venice Arsenal. This turned into an experience of sensory overload — an enormous dark warehouse with massive colorful and cryptic modern artworks in every imaginable medium. We wandered for hours trying to make sense of it all. The artists, from all over the world, but particularly from Africa, SE Asia and South America had provided descriptions of their intent and motivations, but frankly their explanations often left us even more baffled. We probably need to abandon our western, rationalist, logical mental habits to get on the right wavelength, or perhaps no wavelength at all.

After we had visited the central exhibit, it was on to somewhat smaller installations sponsored by various countries. We also moved to the other main site, where the Biennale has been held for more than a century.

Some of the country exhibits were playful and fun. We were particularly amused by the Japanese pavilion that was overrun by hundreds of well dressed baby dolls in sunglasses. Visitors were encouraged to walk around the exhibit holding a “baby” and doing various babycare activities, like feeding and changing. There were precocious babies playing on the roof, climbing ropes and watching TV. It all had something to do with the falling birth rate in Japan.

The American Pavilion was quite baffling. An artist called Alma Allen had created about 30 amorphous sculptures in various materials; all were called “untitled” and there was no artist’s statement. Not sure what that says about the USA!

A Belgian artist had collected over 50,000 postcards from junk shops and thrift shops and classified them into various themes by subject, color, type, country and pasted them on walls in columns 40 postcards high. We stared for ages from close up and from a distance. It was like a treasure hunt crossed with a pointillist painting.

After 6+ hours we staggered back to our hotel, exhausted and slept like logs that night.

Today we are in Padua, reached after a short train ride from Venice. On the waterbus from our hotel to the station we met someone who used to live in Narberth and when to school at Lower Merion High School, where Rob and Mark went. He was somewhat younger than them, though, traveling with wife, 3 very young kids and mother-in-law.

What a contrast Padua is… a quiet old town with many nice squares and old cobbled streets. As we walked down one little street we heard a wonderful operatic tenor voice streaming out a window of the music school — a very Italian moment. It is hot (93 degrees F), so we treated ourselves to some delicious gelato in a cool little air-conditioned store in an arcade.

We are looking forward to one more week of traveling through northern Italy, before flying back to Philadelphia next Saturday.

Here are some pictures — in reverse chronological order.