Priceless frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, may be damaged by a nearby construction project, experts say.
The frescoes were painted by Giotto di Bondone around 1305 and are considered a high point in medieval art. They depict the life of Jesus and the Last Judgement and were painted for the private chapel of a rich banker. The figures’ lifelike style and naturalistic poses anticipated the realism of Renaissance art.
Now the construction of a skyscraper nearby threatens to seriously damage the delicate paintings, according to three scholars who have started a petition to halt the project. They say the building will affect drainage in the area, causing the water level to rise. This would increase humidity and all lead subsidence of the walls, both of which would damage the medieval paintings.
A previous, smaller building proposal was postponed for the same reason but the skyscraper has been approved by the municipality. At the time of this writing the petition already had 1892 signatures.
[Image of “The Kiss of Judas” courtesy Flickr user Carla216]
“I am very pig,” Andrea proclaimed in his broken English, having abandoned the etiquette of dishing the meringue onto his plate. His arm was possessively swung around the giant serving bowl, he was digging into dessert with the fervor of man on a mission for diabetes. Then he looked up, his eyes shifting around the table at each of us, a meringue-eating grin on his face. It was the end of a long and amusing meal with strangers.
I was at someone’s home. In Bologna. And dining with a small handful of people I’d just met that night, eating the food of a muscular-armed woman I didn’t know existed until about two hours earlier. Welcome to Home Food, an organization that stretches from the tip to the top of the boot, offering hungry eaters the chance to eat regional home-cooked food in a home.
“Guests are treated like visiting relatives,” said one of the women sitting across from me at the dinner, who was apparently a Home Food regular. And why not? Based on Andrea’s affair with the meringue bowl we might as well have been visiting family. “And the chef, the Cesarina,” – the name the organization uses to call the host-cook – “she is like our grandmother.”
It sounded good to me. I ended up here sort of by accident, the consequences of the type of coincidence that occurs when the person sitting next to you on a flight opens their mouth and lets those things called words ooze out. I was on my way to Bologna. So was Cathy, as I’ll call her, because I don’t remember her name but as she rambled on and on through the flight I kept thinking: why oh why did I end up sitting next to this Chatty Cathy? She took a break from telling me about her life story to say she had signed up for a personalized tour though a company called Italy Vacations and in doing so they had organized for her to eat at someone’s house. The organization, which can be booked through the website, is called Home Food. (My old friend Matt Gross has also written about it here.)
When most restaurants in Italy also serve simple cuisine in a generally no-frills environment, What makes Home Food different? The woman across from me had an answer: “Restaurants are an enterprise and they can’t spend too much money or they won’t make a profit. They cut corners. Here, though, you’re getting traditional cooking – sometimes dishes you can’t get in a restaurant – that are made with care.”
Case in point, the first dish our Cesarina brought out was rosetta: thick strips of baked pasta wrapped around mortadella and prosciutto with a gooey cheese and béchamel center. While I admit I’ve only dedicated about three weeks of my life to being in Bologna, I’d never seen anything like this on a menu before. Then came tender veal and pork meatballs, a mountain of them, which the group happily (and understandably) devoured. The last of the savory courses looked like it was marched here straight from the nearest elementary school cafeteria or red-state church basement potluck dinner: aspic. Even the name sounds gross. Dig, if you will, the picture: carrots, potatoes, beans, peas and chicken encased in a transparent gelatin. These probably-very-good ingredients were trapped inside like bad children. The jelly monster sat there, jiggling and staring at me in the face, challenging me to liberate its prisoners. The Italians at the table didn’t seem to have the revulsion I did.
But in the spirit of trying everything at least once (and being a good guest), I scooped some aspic on my plate and commenced chewing. It would be nice to say that the aspic surprised me, that it was the best thing I ate all night and that I’m going to make it when I get home. Nope. It tasted exactly as it looked: like a miasma of gelatinous goop in my mouth.
Out of all the dishes (including that meringue that Andrea “generously” finished off for us), the Cesarina was batting four out of five. Not bad.
The words were in Italian but the melody was unmistakable. Unfortunately, I recognized the Italian version of this insidious tune immediately.
Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I’m only falling apart. There’s nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the heart. (Eclissi del cuore)
I was on a bus heading from one small town to another in Puglia, Southern Italy, and it was just the driver and I. Oh to be a bus driver in a small town in Puglia. They have total autonomy to play their own music, chat on their phones and text to their hearts content, so when you step on board, it feels a bit like getting a ride with someone. I was the only passenger on this bus and the driver didn’t look up from his mobile phone when I boarded.Moments later, he looked up from his incessant texting, as he continued to barrel down the road towards a town called Conversano, just to pop a homemade CD into the player with the offending tune. I couldn’t help but ponder two questions: 1) Why had someone, in this case a musician named L’Aura, chosen to cover this dreadful tune in Italian? 2) Why was the driver inflicting his horrible taste in music on me and other unsuspecting passengers at this volume level?
I had no idea but before I knew it we were on to an Italian cover of “Winds of Change,” complete with the catchy whistling. You’re already doing it in your head, right? Sorry for the earworm. Later in the day, I sat in an outdoor café that piped in a host of dreadful tunes, including Toto’s “Africa” and “Next Time I Fall in Love.” And just this morning in Kos, I went to a beach bar that was nice and quiet, ordered a drink and then was hit with an onslaught of Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” followed by a cover version of “The Careless Whisper” at ear-splitting volume. The truth is that travel can be hazardous to your aural health.
Sure, I could walk around with my iPod listening to Guided by Voices, The National, Neil Young and some of my other favorites, but when traveling with my wife and two children it wouldn’t be very sociable. And besides, listening to cheesy music can be fun, in small doses.
But I draw the line at being subjected to dreadful music at beach clubs or resorts where you can be held hostage by bad DJs for your entire trip. I love to hear the sound of the waves on a beach, not Bryan Adams singing “(Everything I do) I Do It For You.” I once stayed at a sublime Westin on the beach in Puerto Vallarta and loved the place save for the insidious soft rock hits that were piped into every conceivable nook and cranny of the grounds. By the end of the week, I think I’d heard DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night” approximately 14,000 times.
The odd thing about encountering rancid North American pop music outside North America is that you hear horrible songs you haven’t heard in ages but also learn about songs that somehow became popular without you noticing. I’ve often found myself speaking to a foreigner who can’t believe that an American has never heard of so-and-so, the American pop star that everyone knows about except for me.
Someday, my dream is to open my own hotel/resort so I can inflict my own musical tastes on the unsuspecting masses. But until then, I’ll be motoring, running on empty and continuing to search for that lost shaker of salt on the road, bad music and all.
It’s 45 degrees outside with a light rain and 40 mph winds and my wife is sitting in a doorway, huddled by her computer, teeth chattering, using a sketchy Wi-Fi signal a block from the Adriatic Sea in Polignano-A-Mare, Italy. My fingers are already numb from typing in the biting cold for two hours before she assumed command of our makeshift office, located right underneath a modem.
If you have the luxury of disconnecting from work while traveling and all you need to do is send and receive the occasional email, you’ll be just fine in Italy. But if you’re like us, and have to work while there and need a good, relatively fast Internet connection, you’re probably in for some of the same adventures we encountered.
Over the course of a five-week trip, mostly in small to medium sized cities all over Italy, staying in hotels and vacation rental apartments, we spent countless hours trying to make the most of tepid or non-existent connections. In unseasonably chilly Polignano-A-Mare, we realized the only true hotspot we had access to was in the doorway of the reception area for an apartment we rented; in Spoleto we had to sit literally in our windowsill to get a connection; in Parma I had to set up shop right on the front desk of the hotel; and in Lecce, we used an outdoor courtyard behind our apartment. What follows are some of the lessons we learned trying to get online in Italy.
Before you book a hotel or apartment rental, make your Internet needs abundantly clear. Many establishments offer what they call “Wi-Fi” but all they have is one modem somewhere in or near their establishment to service a number of rooms or apartments. Their “Wi-Fi” will allow you to check email but little else. When searching for places, make it very clear that you’re on a business trip – even if you aren’t – and tell them you need a place with consistent Wi-Fi.
Plenty of places will claim their Wi-Fi is just fine but some will be honest and tell you it’s fairly useless. I had one hotel manager in Parma respond to my inquiry about high-speed Internet with the following bluntly honest comment: “High-speed Internet?” he wrote. “There is no such thing in Italy.” I didn’t book with him, but I appreciated his honesty.
Don’t unpack until you check the signal. If Wi-Fi is important to you, check it in a few different spots in your room or apartment before you unpack. Speed varies wildly from one room to the next depending on the distance from the modem, thickness of the walls and other variables. Old, thick walls are a problem everywhere in Italy. Ask for a different room or apartment and see if the connection is better there.
If you’re traveling outside of the high season and think you’ll be spoiled for choice where you’re going, you might consider testing connections in person before committing to a place. But note that just because it’s working at the moment you try it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work in ten minutes, two days or a week later. My normal M.O. if I’m staying in a place for more than a week is to book the first night or two in a hotel, then relocate to a rental apartment. It’s one thing to be disconnected for a day or two, but quite another to have no access for a week or more.
When I went out to look for apartments, I’d bring my laptop with me and test the connection. In a few cases, I ended up renting apartments with sketchy Internet anyway, because there were no better options, but at least I knew what I was getting into.
Accept that there is no magic stick that works all over the country. I did a lot of research on this topic and tried a few sticks in different parts of Italy to no avail. I wish I could tell you to buy a stick from TIM or WIND or one of the other providers you’ll see at mobile phone shops all over the country, but the truth is that these sticks aren’t any better than finding random Wi-Fi connections in cafés, hotels and other hotspots.
There is also no way to tell you which sticks work best in which parts of the country, unfortunately. One stick might work in one place, but right across the street it’ll have no signal. What I can tell you is that most mobile phone shops will allow you to experiment with these sticks, and if they don’t work, you can bring them back. I tried them a couple times in different places and had no luck at all, but your luck might be different depending on where you are. Some shops will rent them on a daily basis for as little as 4 euros per day – which, if they work, is a bargain. Give them the address you’ll be staying at, and ask them which one works best in that area.
Move about the cabin. This probably goes without saying, but it’s especially true in Italy. Grab your laptop or mobile device and just move around with it, you’ll be amazed how the signal can improve just by moving a few feet.
Hope your laptop battery is good. I spent a ton of time using Wi-Fi outdoors, away from power outlets in Italy. If you have an older battery that has lost a lot of its mojo, this might be an issue for you. If you don’t want to get a new one, consider bringing a long extension cord – it might come in handy for you.
Bring your own Ethernet cable. I stayed in lots of different places, but none offered cables. Your speed will improve dramatically if you can plug into a modem. Obviously, this isn’t always going to be possible, depending on the setup, but in some cases it is. Bring a long cord because you never know what the situation will be.
Wi-Fi awards. I stayed in lots of different places all over the country but encountered just two places that had commendable Internet connections. Three cheers for the beautiful, brand new Santa Croce hotel in Lecce, and the Residence Perugia Chocolate in Perugia.
Don’t forget your sense of humor. You’ll find all kinds of businesses offering Wi-Fi in Italy, but very few have unsecured connections. Ask them for their password and keep track of which establishment has the most ridiculous one. I don’t know why, but nearly everyone in Italy has an absurdly long, complex password. I had a wine bar in Spoleto hand me a Wi-Fi password that had more than 30 characters! I didn’t bother using it, but I had a good laugh.
We were standing on a train platform in Ancona, Italy, waiting for a train, when my 4-year-old son, Leo, made a surprisingly prescient comment.
“I hope our train’s not ritardo,” he said, using the Italian word for delayed, which he’s heard many times on our trip.
Leo knows only four words in Italian but it occurred to me that two of them- ritardo and chiuso (closed) are two of the dreaded words that travelers in Italy become all too familiar with if they spend enough time in the country. Here are some of the others.
Chiuso. I’ll say up front that I’m an Italian-American who is extremely fond of Italy and the Italians but even the most ardent Italy-backer has to admit that the arbitrary and capricious opening hours in museums, shops and restaurants can be maddening. For an American used to supreme convenience, things seem to be chiuso more than they’re aperto. One could cite thousands of examples, but here is just one I noticed in Parma: the museum attached to the Church of St. Constantine is open from 9:30 until 11 a.m., and then again from 3:30 to 5 p.m.La Pausa. Italy’s siesta can be a real hassle for travelers, especially if you’re making day trips and have no choice but to arrive in a place smack in the middle of the day, when the entire place is shut down. What I find most annoying is how varied the mid-day break is from one town and one business to the next. I’ve found places that are open for lunch that close promptly at 1 p.m., others that stay open the whole day and some that advertise one set of hours but change on a dime if the mood strikes. Shops might reopen at 4, or it could be 5, or some get back in gear as late at 6:30. Your guess is as good as mine.
Sciopero. (Strike) Yes indeed, the Italians know how to strike. They’ll strike if someone suggests that perhaps it isn’t quite right for them to have 18 weeks of paid vacation, 22 weeks of sick leave and 59 public holidays per year; they’ll strike if their quota of espresso breaks is reduced from 11 to 9 each day; and they’ll strike if the price of gelato is increased in their workplace cafeteria.
The only certainty in Italy is that at any given time, someone, or perhaps almost everyone, will be on strike. A month ago, we encountered two strikes in one day – once in Savona, when striking port workers blocked our bus from exiting a parking lot and again later in the day, when we encountered a rail strike in Milan.
Coperto. Most restaurants and many cafés that offer tables charge a coperto or cover charge that is usually about 1-2 euros per person. I’ve noticed that most restaurants charge my 4-year-old son the coperto, but only some charge my 2-year-old. One audacious restaurateur in Perugia charged us the coperto for my younger son even though he remained asleep on my lap throughout the meal and didn’t eat. (I balked and he agreed to remove the charge.) As Americans, we’re used to tipping 15-20% but in Italy, if you want to stick to a budget, you need to get used to tipping less, depending on the size of the coperto, and the quality of the service.
Aspetta. (Wait) Italy isn’t a great country for the impatient. In the U.S. we use the term “run” errands, but here you don’t “run” errands, you crawl through them on your hands and knees. The only Italians who seem to be in a hurry are those you find behind the wheel of a car or moped, speeding at you as you try to cross a street.
Burocrazia. (Bureaucracy) If you want a good example of how not to streamline what should be a routine procedure, try mailing a package home from Italy. I’ve done this twice recently, once from Perugia and once from Lecce, and I swear putting a man on the moon was less complicated. Aside from the myriad forms to fill out, and the dizzying array of questions you have to answer, you also need a passport (no your driver’s license will not suffice).
People often say that the U.S. is a police state. Really? In the U.S. you can vote without even showing any photo I.D. whatsoever, but in Italy, you can’t even use a computer without a passport. A couple weeks ago in Lecce, I went to an Internet café and asked them to scan a document for me but was told they needed my passport.
“But I’m not even using the computer,” I protested.
But it didn’t matter; they wanted my passport. I asked why and got the classic Italian shrug of the shoulders from an African immigrant who was assimilating into Italian culture seamlessly.
Brutto Tempo. (Ugly/Nasty weather) The Italians love to use the word “brutto,” which means ugly but is used more liberally than in English. When you encounter brutto tempo in Italy, you’ll be assured that the inclement weather is very unusual and that it was beautiful just before you arrived and will very likely be great as soon as you leave.
Supplemento. (Supplement) Italy has a bewildering array of train services, ranging from lightning fast to exceedingly slow and if you aren’t careful, you’ll buy the wrong ticket and be assessed a supplemento on the train.
Stranieri. (Foreigner) If you hear someone referring to you as a stranieri, there’s not necessarily a cause for alarm but be on your guard because you might get overcharged. Italian restaurateurs are famous for adding items onto bills, so ask for a ricevuta dettagliata to make sure you’re not getting hosed.
Other Italian words you don’t want to be familiar with:
Rotto- broken Imposibile- impossible Finito- finished/it’s done/ there is none left Torno fra 5 minuti- will return in 5 minutes (or perhaps tomorrow) C’è Coda- a long line Non c’è posto- sold out/there is no place Occupato- reserved/taken Riservato- reserved Munirsi di biglietto prima- pay for your coffee/snack/etc first and come back with the receipt to get your item. Marco da bollo- dreaded revenue stamps, which are needed to secure official documents. Pieno/ Esaurito- sold out