My first stop in this visit to Italy was Munich (Italy? You ask). Actually Munich was my touching down point in Europe so spent an evening there. As my flight from Edinburgh took off lots of people high-fived each other as there was so much doubt about whether we would be hit by snow (have you been reading the news?). But somehow through all the snow that weekend we managed to take off with a delay of only half an hour (miraculous considering the horror stories one heard).
At Munich airport, on the shuttle bus, this American lady standing next to me asked her husband where their laptop was. Very coolly he replied “Oh! I left that on the plane”. The lady gave him the look and within seconds (I am not joking) tears started streaming down her face. She sobbed and said, “Our entire life is on the laptop. Well at least mine is”. Then she hysterically started crying. The husband, I must say, was very cool in all this. Got me thinking about my laptop and the virus it recently had.
Ok back to Munich - I was there exactly (to the day) a year earlier and did exactly the same things again – went to the Christmas Market. Being used to the pared down version at Edinburgh, it is always a real eye-opener to be at the one in Munich. A REAL german Christmas market! Which meant a lot of glühwein, currywurst and kartoflsouppe. Also visited a bierhalle - a concept in itself - large drinking ‘halls’ that are attached to breweries….these are always brimming with people trying to get their hand on the magic elixir….
Next morning (with a nice hangover by my side) I boarded the 07:30 train headed for Verona. My ultimate destination was Padova. The train journey, through southern Germany and Austria, before entering Italy, was a sheer joy. A trip through white wonderland of snow all around, tree branches weighed down by snow, mist rising over rivers and lakes. I knew we had entered Italy when the train conductors changed and we now had a pretty conductress who was on the phone all the time!
Padova is a small, charming university town. In fact, the university at Padova is the second oldest university (1222 AD) in Italy after Bologna. The claim to fame of this university is that our friend Galileo Galilei taught here for 18 years. Amongst other famous names associated with the university are Gabriele Fallopio (the Fallopian tubes man), William Harvey (circulation of blood), Giacomo Casanova (no introduction required), and Francis Walsingham. This University had the first ever woman to graduate in the world (Elena Lucrezia, the trivial pursuit enthusiasts). When I went for a conducted tour of some of the buildings of the university there was much confusion at the start of the tour. The lady kept on apologising and the tour started late because they had ‘lost the keys’ (this is Italy, remember!). When the tour finally got underway (after they did manage to locate the keys) they showed us the lectern from which Galileo gave his lectures and also the anatomy theatre (which was a pretty gruesome sight), which was a first in the world. In one of the rooms the pride of place was given to skulls of former professors who had donated their bodies to medical research!
I’m usually very good at getting oriented to a new city / town I visit but I must confess that I found the streets of Padova very confusing (even more than its neighbour Venezia) - the first evening I was there I just couldn’t find my way back to my hotel (no, it wasn’t the wine!).
Padova’s claim to fame, apart from the university, is the fresco cycle by Giotto at the Cappella degli Scrovegni. The frescoes that cover the entire four walls of this chapel are very delicate and one has to spend 20 minutes in a decontamination chamber before one can enter the chapel. The chapel itself was built by one Mr. Scrovegni in the late 12th / early 13th century. It was built by him for his father (the aforesaid father, being a money lender, was mentioned to be in one of the circles of Dante’s hell so Junior Mr. Scrovegni wanted to restitute for his fathers sins!). As this was the off-tourist season, I was the only one visiting the chapel that day – which was good, as I had 20 minutes to myself in the chapel to enjoy Giotto’s frescoes.
Another Padovan institution is Café Pedrocchi, which is one of the largest cafes in the world – I enjoyed my (highly) overpriced coffee there and knew that I was in good company – Stendhal, Byron, and Dario Fo frequented this café at some point or the other.
From Padova, I moved on to Pesaro (in Le Marche region). My trips to Italy are getting more and more complicated (logistics wise) as I go to towns/cities I have not visited before. On the train to Pesaro, the old lady next to me started tut-tutting as almost everyone around us opened their laptops to ‘work’. She started scolding them and went on to say, “I am sure you take your laptops to the bagno (washroom) also. Why don’t you read a book or just talk”.
Pesaro is not known for much and I used it as a base to explore Urbino and San Marino. Pesaro is a beach town and given that this was the wrong season, there were only locals milling around (which is always preferable to the British and American tourists!). After the UK, it is such a pleasure to see people just walking (doing their passeggiatas) on the streets and piazza for the sake of being there and catching up with others - as opposed to the UK where the street is only a means of getting from point A to point B. The main square of Pesaro consisted of the obligatory fountain and Palazzo - and a X’mas tree (a nod to the festive time of the year). Pesaro’s claim to fame is that Gioachino Rossini was born here – so the Casa Rossini is the sight-to-visit in town.
Considering that I was perhaps the only tourist in town, my visit to the Museo Civico turned out to be quite an event for the staff there (who outnumbered me 20-1). I was given 5-star treatment at the museum. After I finished my visit (the highlight of which is Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece Coronation of the Virgin), the staff produced the museum visitors book and made me sign it - they had seen an Indian visitor (or any visitor, for that matter) after ages and perhaps wanted a ‘souvenir’ of this momemtous event!!!
From Pesaro, I visited Urbino for the day. Urbino is one of the prettiest Renaissance / medieval towns of Le Marche. Urbino’s 15th century Duke of Montefeltro was a fine patron of arts and was responsible for putting Urbino on the map. He lost one eye in a tournament accident and to widen the ‘field of vision’ of his good (left) eye, he had the bridge of his nose removed! Which is why one always sees his profile in portraits (including the most famous one by Piero Della Francesca).
Urbino’s most famous son, however, was Rafaello (as someone pointed out, not to be confused with the Mutant Ninja Turtle) who spent the first 16 years of his life here. I made the obligatory visit to the Casa di Rafaello where, yet again, I was the only visitor. After I finished having a look at the house and got back to the entrance, the staff there (who were obviously keeping track of my movements on CCTV) pointed out that I had missed seeing a room. They then made me go back up the stairs again to see the room! The Duke’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale) turned out to be a huge affair with lots of large, cold rooms with many paintings from the 15th and 16th century. Here I made sure to ‘see’ all the rooms lest I be sent back up again in the cold! The most famous paintings here were Piero Della Francesca's The Flagellation and Raffaello La Muta.
I wandered Urbino’s tiny alleys where 3 wheeler Piaggio scooters vroomed (a perfect Italian cliché) and the piazzas where the carabinieri (local cops) were standing and smoking their day away (more clichés!).
Also visited San Marino for the day - now this is an entire country in the course of one day. Though San Marino is the third smallest country in Europe (after the Vatican and Monaco) but even one day is perhaps too much for this city-state. There was hardly anything to see. It is perched on the top of a hill and so the views around are quite good but per se there is nothing to do at San Marino. I aimlessly wandered the streets and treated myself to a fine pizza and then ran out of things to do. So I entered a Gelataria (it was 18° outside) and looked for my boring chocolate among the ice-creams that were on display. When I asked the gentleman at the counter why they didn’t have chocolate flavour he looked a bit hurt and pointed out that they had seven different chocolate flavours. It was just that none of them were chocolate coloured !
