High water and fresco vandals

I experienced the acqua alta—high water—in Venice after all, and I'm glad I did.  Having occurred for hundreds of years, it is a quintessential part of life there.  It is not a result of rising sea levels (though this will severely exacerbate it).  Of course, it was nowhere near the magnitude of the 1966 floods, but locals were wearing their colourful gumboots (Venice is the place to shop if you're a fashion-conscious pig farmer), wading obliviously through six inches of water in the lower-lying areas.  More commonly it was less than an inch, most places were in fact dry, and the water table dropped again with an hour.

For four nights in Venice I lost track of the days, like I had taken a vacation from my holiday.  The city feels unmoved by the passage of time, like it is still its own republic, separate from Italy, the rest of the world, and modernity.  It's a strangely affecting place and, in all my travels through Eastern and Western Europe, incomparable.

So when I arrived in Verona, only an hour away, I was rather too bedazzled to fairly assess one of Italy's prettiest little cities.  That it was raining again dampened my enthusiasm, too, but the second day was beautifully clear and sunny, a cool, Autumn day (as in fact, they all have been since), and I discovered the stunning Romanesque Basilica of San Zeno.  If you remember your Shakespeare you'll know that Friar Lawrence married Romeo and Juliet in the crypt (looking on would have been the preserved body of Zeno who died in 380 AD).  Also preserved are superb frescoes, dozens of them, dating back to the 12th century.  They are still brilliant and in large sections intact, despite being damaged by time, war (Allied bombing), and 18th-century snot-nosed brats—there is a great deal of graffiti, often dated, etched into the plaster.  The architecture of the building is reknowned, with a beautifully decorated ship's keel ceiling as well as a stunning facade.  Apparently.  It was masked by—that's right—scaffolding for restoration work, rendering it unsuitable for shooting.  At least the scaffolding screens were sympathetically painted with the facade's likeness.

Wow.

Venice is fantastic. I don’t know where to begin.

The 1500-year old city is vast—when you wander the sprawling sestieri (districts), it just keeps going—yet it never feels bigger than a large town. And there is not a single modern building in sight.

Venice is a tourist’s feast. The canals are as picturesque as you have been led to believe, and are never clichéd. The art is such sumptuous gluttony that another Tintoretto invokes an offhand, “oh, more paintings.” And the shopping (for those inclined) is comparable to Paris (both in scale and price).

Yes, Venice is expensive. The average price of a simple trattoria meal is €20. I was fortunate to find accommodation in a resedenzia for €50 per night—a simple room with no breakfast—because it is off season, and that is as cheap as you’ll find.

Visiting in the off season is the way to go. There are still plenty of tourists, but they don’t overpower the city as they do in peak season. Trying to pilot the narrow streets swollen to bursting with mile after mile of people is an arduous way to relax, as Mai Li and I found in Florence one year when we unwittingly arrived on a long weekend.

After catching a vaporetto, a public ferry, down the length of the Grand Canal the first morning of my arrival, I spent the entire day in Piazza San Marco. I took some furtive photography—disallowed—of the dazzling golden mosaic-tiled ceiling of the Basilica San Marco, now the cathedral of Venice but which for 700 years of gobsmacking opulence was the private chapel of the doge (duke and elected head of state).

I depleted the next three hours spending not enough time wandering the warren of rooms in the doge’s palace, the seat of the Venetian government. The walls and ceilings of every room are filled with paintings by Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian, culminating in the cavernous Sala del Maggior Consiglio (Grand Council Hall) which hosts Tintoretto’s Paradiso, one of the world’s largest oil paintings. It is a mindboggling experience. One room that did stand out for me was the Chamber of the Magistrato alle Leggi, which, to my surprise, is today used to exhibit several works by Hieronymus Bosch.

Portuguese monasteries

Beginning with the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Lisbon with its ornate stonework, I did the monastery circuit in Portugal—Batalha, Alcobaça, and Tomar. These towns host architecturally astonishing abbeys that are perhaps the most significant in the country.

The monastery at Batalha was built to commemorate Dom João’s victory in the 1385 Battle of Aljubarrota. The defeat of King Juan of Castile in a contest for the Portuguese throne was one of the most consequential battles in European history, given that it assured Portuguese independence prior to their initiation of Europe’s imperial expansion and colonisation across the globe, the so-called Age of Discovery, with Vasco da Gama’s establishment of a sea route to India. The elaborate architecture and sculpture of the convent at Batalha (which means “battle” in Portuguese) reflects the importance of this event.

At Alcobaça, the interior of the severe but grand Romanesque hall church contrasts its Manueline façade, while the gigantic kitchen of the abbey itself is indulgence manifest. The chimney is three storeys tall and is large enough at its base to envelop a car. A small tributary was dug from the nearby river and diverted through the kitchen to supply the monastery with fresh fish. Hardly a monks’ existence.

The massive, 12th-century Convento do Cristo in Tomar, the headquarters of the legendary Order of the Knights Templar, is the most atmospheric—and the largest. I spent four hours hurrying to see everything. The highlight is the staggering charola, or Round Church. An octagonal rotunda with a ceiling perhaps ten metres tall containing a central structure connected by arches—the high altar—is intricately decorated with sculptures and paintings. Legend has it that the knights attended mass here on horseback.

Coimbra

Coimbra’s Sé Velha—the old cathedral (the “new,” 17th-century one is further up the hill)—is considered a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture in Portugal. It is a stunning example, largely unaltered since it’s construction, with a double-arched clerestory over each tall, single-arched arcade. The narrow window slits and crenellated 12th-century walls are reminders of the hostile relations with the Moors.

Inside, I overheard a young boy looking up at the elaborate Renaissance retable of Christ on the cross ask his parents, “why was Jesus crucified?” I pulled him aside and said, “because he was stupid.” Let’s face it: when Pontius Pilate asked him, “Are you the Son of God?” he only needed to whisper, “Nah, not really. Don’t tell anybody,” and voilà! He would have lived to a ripe old age and history would have been spared centuries of Catholic guilt. You know all these lunatics who swear, “I’m Jesus Christ”? He’s the one who got away with it. The joke’s on you, Christianity.
But it is still a nice cathedral.