Italy : Travelogue (2003)

Venice, Italy

Now, as the conference was over, we were booking hotels on our own using ‘Lonely Planet’s guide – ‘Europe’. Also, since we had not reserved our train tickets, we were buying current tickets to have the flexibility to move as per our convenience.

As we got out of Railway Station - Ferro Via (‘Ferro’ for iron rails and ‘via’ for way) in Venice, huge tourist crowds surprised us. Till now, we were used to a very few people moving around in Switzerland as well as in Austria. But Venice was different. Its rush reminded that of India.

We bought two 24-hr. bus passes for Venice. Needless to say, the buses were actually boats (locally known as Vaporetto). The main road (oops! the main canal) passed through all the major stops and has house and hotels built on both sides of the canal. As we boarded a boat, it seemed as if the air was abuzz with the tune of ‘Do Labzon ki hai dil ki kahaani….’

Next day we took a vaporatti to Lido -a famous fashion capital of one time. Lido looked somewhat like modern Europe with cars, modern style of houses and shops. Save Lido, Venice looked like a beautiful romantic city that has come to life from some ancient times.

At Piazza de San Marco, like others, we too purchased corn seeds to feed pigeons. As the pigeons feasted on the seeds sitting all over the head, shoulders or palms, the moment presents itself as an ideal snap-shot to be captured on camera. We were missing our daughter Srishti too much, in fact while feeding the pigeons Urvashi said that she felt as if she was feeding Srishti!

We also got clicked a snap of ours in front of the ‘bridge of sighs’, the building adjacent to this was a prison at some point of time, where Casanova was imprisoned for some time and the women used to stand on this bridge and sigh!



Florence & Pisa, Italy

We had this great day in Venice before we took up another train and left for Florence.
From Florence, early in the morning we left for Pisa. While in Pisa, I remembered my close friend Chandu a lot, who had spent few years in this town.

The leaning Tower of Pisa

The leaning tower is a godsend opportunity for this town, where otherwise, few tourists would come. They would rather go around Florence to the scenic areas of Tuscany region (which we missed out). But to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World, tourists flock this place.

Most big Churches in Italy seemed to have a bell-tower next to them, and so did the church in Pisa. The foundation of it’s bell tower was laid in 1173 A.D., But as the tower was constructed, it was realized that due to certain type of material used or due to the marshy nature of the land, the tower was not very stable - it in fact started leaning! Twelve years later the construction was stopped, which could only begin a century later.

After lots of restoration work the tower stands as it is today – leaned about 4 meters from the vertical axis – and is still leaning by approx. 1mm per year!




Florence

Florence city per se was a bit of disappointment as we had formed high hopes of scenic beauty, but it was just a city. There was a great museum though, having paintings from 13th Century onwards, all of which were biblical depictions. Some of them by great artists like Raphael and Lorenzo. It housed lots of sculptures too. One had to wait in long queues to get in. We thought about how foreigners must have been feeling when they visit India!

At dusk, we climbed the hill on which Michelangelo’s monument is built. From this point, there was this spectacular view of the city. There were lots of tourists around, lovers freely smooching and a painter doing some strange spray painting with a crowd around him, his system playing a fast track Punjabi folk number, that too, on full volume!

Next day early in the morning we took a cheaper train to Rome (14 Euro/person)


Rome, Italy

‘Rome was not built in a day’, though being a clichéd saying, takes a different meaning while roaming the city of Rome. The excavated sites of ancient Rome (some dating back to the B.C. era), the ruins of medieval Rome and the jazzy new markets of modern Rome – they all co-exist, sometimes just a walking distance from each other. Long back I had somewhere heard Mark Tully’s reference to India as ‘centuries co-exist in India’, ditto for Rome.

Ancient Rome

The origin of Rome dates back to 753 B.C., built by Romulus. In fact most of the ancient Rome is underground! Over the centuries, because of the changes in the ground level, most such sites went down as low as about 8-9 meters at some places. They are out in the open by careful excavation. Benito Mussolini carried out most of the excavation work, supposedly to gain popularity in the name of ‘restoring the old pride of Rome’.

One such important site is the ‘Roman Forum’, which has among other buildings a ‘Temple of Saturn’, which dates back to approx. 500 B.C., though today what remains is only a side of it with huge pillars, but still it looks majestic! The forum also has a temple of Julius Caesar, where people still keep bouquets. After Caesar was murdered at Piazza del Argentino (another excavated site open for public display) to save ‘Democracy in Rome’, his body was brought here and it was here that Mark Anthony gave that famous speech, “Friend, Romans and Countrymen…”


In the forum, in another temple, a flame was kept alighted all the time, in those days.
Select virgin girls were responsible to keep this lamp alighted, each of whom had to devote 30 years of their life from puberty, for this cause. First 10 years to get trained, next 10 years actually on the job, and last 10 years to train. Though severe punishments were meted out at them, but they sort of enjoyed a special status vis-à-vis other women in Rome. For example they were allowed inside the Colosseum and they also had some kind of influence on the powerful men of those times.

Apart from the Forums, the most well kept building of ancient Rome is perhaps ‘The Pantheon’. Pantheon was built in 27 B.C. It has 16 huge monolithic granite columns, each 13 meters high, brought from Egypt. The story is that the vessel bringing these pillars from Egypt sank and all over again new pillars were built in Egypt and transported to Rome.

After being inside the Pantheon, one can’t but appreciate the vision of the man who thought of building such a marvelous structure in 23 B.C.! Many ancient and medieval buildings in Rome owe their design and architecture to Pantheon. In fact, it is believed that Michelangelo got lots of his ideas from Pantheon, when he was designing the St. Peters church in the Vatican.

When Christianity became popular in Rome, ancient Romans were scoffed as ‘Pagans’, for their worship of the natural elements like Sun, planets, fire etc. and of their emperors. Though Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 A.D., it became popular only in the 7th Century AD. As new churches kept popping up, all old temples and monuments were destroyed; their pillars and their precious metals were used for building the churches and palaces. Some, like the pantheon, survived the onslaught to some extent, as they were converted to Church. Rome was cannibalizing itself.

‘The Colosseum’ still remains a major tourist attraction in Rome. Gladiators used to fight here or were thrown in front of beastly animals, as the spectators, indicating thumbs up or thumbs down were deciding their fate. Approximately 80,000 people could be accommodated in the Colosseum. It was built in 72 A.D.

Ganges in Rome!

At Piazza Navona stands a magnificent fountain –‘The Four Rivers’, created in 1651. At the four corners of this fountain, are personifications of The Nile, a South American river, The Danube and The Ganges.

The Vatican City

The smallest country of the world, is inside Rome, and has magnificent St. Peters Church and an amazing museum. St. Peters church owes its grandeur to Michelangelo, who was given this project in 1547 AD, at the age of 72. The church is flocked by people from all over the world and is huge, majestic and has amazing interiors. In the church, even today, a dress code is followed, dresses like mini-skirts are not allowed.

When we visited Vatican, Mother Teresa was already a big star there, as her beatification was completed recently. Her image was right there on the postcards, magnets, key rings, photographs, statue etc., the souvenir manufacturers were having a great time!

Vatican’s criteria for deciding if someone is a saint or not are that whether he or she could perform miracles, even after death. The miracle, which the mother is supposed to have performed, is curing abdominal tumor of some Monica Besra who prayed to Mother Teresa and her tumor vanished!

Most of us would respect the mother same, magic or no magic. But that’s not the way the medieval ritual of Vatican looks at it. I read a very funny remark from Vir Sanghvi few days back in Mid-Day, that ‘It’s Mother Teresa we are talking about, for god’s sake not Gogia Pasha !’

Anyway, the museum at the Vatican, houses some of the best pieces of all time artistic gems. The Ceiling of Sistine Chapel is mostly done by Michelangelo, which has in the center, his masterpiece – ‘The Creation of Adam’. In this, as the god is creating Adam, their forefingers are just about touching. There is a sac around the god, which has an uncanny resemblance to the anatomy of human brain, which is still being debated after about 500 years whether it is deliberate or co-incidental (of course in those days, the anatomy was not known in such detail)! Other masterpieces in Sistine Chapel include ‘The Last Judgment’.

In the museum, Raphael rooms are a treat to watch. It was believed in Rome in those days that the three basic objectives of humankind are – Truth, Beauty and goodness. Raphael beautifully depicts this. Truth, which represents knowledge and philosophy, is depicted by Raphael’s masterpiece –‘The School of Athens’. In this painting, you can see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Diogenes, Ptolemy, Zoroaster and Raphael himself! Lot of literature has been written on the interpretation of this one painting itself, in fact there is one whole book available on ‘The School of Athens’.

Truth, beauty and goodness immediately reminded me of ‘Satyam, Shivam, and Sundaram’. A mere co-incidence?

The Ghetto

In 16th Century, as the Protestant movement was on rise, The Pope feared that the Jews would join the movement and would become a real threat to Catholics. Most of the Jews in Rome lived in a specific area. The Pope ordered to build a wall around the Jewish locality to isolate them from rest. Thus a huge wall (The Ghetto) was constructed, which remained there for next 300 years, isolating the Jews from rest of the Rome! Inside Ghetto, The Jews lived a miserable life.

In 18th Century, a census reported 8900 Jews inside Ghetto were living in 135 houses (on an average 70 people lived in a single house!) The area inside Ghetto was limited, so they just built more storeys to their house to accommodate the growing population. They lived in serious unhygienic living conditions.

In 1871, the first emperor of unified Italy, Victor Emmanuel, declared Italy to be a nation not to be built on religion, and it was only then that the Ghetto was brought down.



The Greek tragedies

Near this Jewish area, resembling Colosseum, is a theater - The Theater of Marcellus. This was begun by Caesar and was completed by Augustus in 11 B.C. Like a semicircle, it looks like half a Colosseum. The design of Colosium was lifted from this theatre, formed by sort of putting two of this amphitheatre together.

This theater used to stage Greek tragedies, which ended with someone getting killed or committing suicide. The only difference was that this role was given to convicts and they were to ACTUALLY die in the end to provide REAL entertainment (in the absence of Reel life) to the audience!

The theater served many purpose – here, the public were entertained to keep them from entertaining any ideas of a conspiracy, convicts were punished brutally and people were given a strong message that if they do wrong, what fate awaits them!

Trastevere

River Tiber flows through Rome. The other side of Tiber is a small place called Trastevere (derived from ‘Trans-Tiber’). There is a small bridge there, which was built in approx. 65 B.C. (in Caesar’s time!). It still stands as it was and is perhaps world’s oldest functional bridge! Trastevere also holds the distinction of having the oldest Church of Rome.

Trivia

In Rome at one point of time, becoming Pope meant having great power and influence. Those families flourished whose one of the members would become pope. Of course, Popes were not supposed to marry and thus not have children. Many of them, though, had children, from illegal liaisons, who were referred to as Pope’s nephews! And it was these nephews who got all-important jobs. Thus the term ‘Nepotism’ got coined.

Before leaving Italy, we took time-out specifically for ‘Naples-style Pizza’ at a famous restaurant in Rome – ‘The Pizza Re’ at Piazza Lapoli. Take my words for it; it’s simply Pizza at its best, melting deliciously in mouth

Early morning next day we boarded the Rome-Zurich-Mumbai flight, once in Mumbai, I felt that wherever you go, nothing feels like coming back home to India!