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Italy

Padua, Italy: The bluest blue I’ve ever seen

And other observations my daughter made during a quick morning trip to Padua from Venice

My daughter spent three months living in Venice in 2017 as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. Her time there was magical, challenging, beautiful, and life-changing. On four occasions, she day-tripped with her friends away from the 124 islands that compose Venice to visit these cities: Bologna, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. One day, she travelled to Ravenna with my husband, our son and me when we visited over spring break.

Since her return, we’ve enjoyed many conversations about her time in Italy. In this and future posts, I’ll be relaying the details of each of these short excursions. This post is about her morning trip to Padua, a city that claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. It’s a short 26 miles from Venice.

The interview answers are just the two of us talking; see the photo captions for more detailed notes and facts about her trip.

How did you travel to Padua? We left from the Venice train station at 9 a.m. It took barely thirth minutes to get there.

What was the most important thing you saw in Padua? Our goal in going to Padua—of Padova, as the Italians say—was to see the Scrovegni Chapel. It’s covered on the inside with many famous frescoes by Giotto. He was a painter during the Middle Ages. He was known for the expressions he painted on people. The frescoes in the chapel are literally in every art history textbook I’ve ever seen. The chapel is extremely small and floor to ceiling it’s jammed with frescoes.

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Another view of the floor-to-ceiling frescoes painted by Giotto at the Scrovegni Chapel. Giotto is considered pre-Renaissance; his work takes a step away from the Medieval style. Photo: K. Yung

Did the chapel meet your expectations? Yes! It was exactly what I hoped it would be. Giotto was known for using blue and the frescoes there were way more intensely vibrant than I expected them to be. The color was the bluest blue I’ve ever seen.

Before you even enter the chapel, it must be readied by the staff. They adjust the humidity level in order to control the air quality inside and they also regulate your entrance time because the air quality must be adjusted to protect the frescoes. Many of them are fragile. Some are entirely gone. Some are faded and chipping away. They were completed in 1305, so that explains the deterioration.

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This photo shows the most famous fresco (center) in the Scrovegni Chapel entitled “Lamentation of Christ.” The anguish in the facial expressions of the figures is one characteristic that makes this fresco so well-known. Photo: K. Yung
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The gardens and grounds that surrounded the Scrovegni Chapel were lush with the spring season in Padua. Photo: K. Yung

Where did you go after the Scrovegni? We went to Chiesa degli Eremitani, literally the Church of the Hermits, which was a religious order under St. Augustine. It’s a very tall church with a woven, wooded lattice roof. There area frescoed bricks on the wall. At the front where the altar is, there are two or three little chapels. There are interesting frescoes that go up into the domes, but only to a point.

The church was bombed in World War II and they were almost totally destroyed. Over the years, the building has been renovated. There are fragmented frescoes where black paint has been applied showing what the image would have been had it not been bombed.

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Inside the Chiesa degli Eremitani, the frescoes show scenes from the life of St. Augustine. The damage done to this church is considered by art historians to be Italy’s “greatest artistic wartime loss.” Photo: K. Yung
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This photo shows the devastation of the bombing from 1944. Fragments from the destroyed frescoes have been found over the years and inserted onto the plaster in the precise spots where they were believed to have been placed originally. Photo: K. Yung

Did you grab a meal while you were there? Yes, after the Chiesa, we ran to get pizza somewhere on the way to the train station. We also managed to find an American coffee shop and I ordered a chai tea latte for the first time while I was in Italy. Chai tea is not a thing in Italy, by the way.

That was also about the time we realized we had bought the wrong returning ticket to Venice. We made our way onto the next train back, but didn’t have time to purchase tickets. It was a confusing ordeal. We planned to pay while we were onboard the train, but no one ever checked our tickets.

We made it back to Venice by 2 in the afternoon, which was around the time we were scheduled to get ready to tour Damien Hirst’s mammoth exhibition, which is totally another story.

Would you like to go back to Padua since you were only there for a few hours? Yes, of course, it would be great to go back. There are so many things I know we just didn’t have time for. One would be the Basilica of Saint Anthony. Someday… someday.

Featured Photo: The Scrovegni Chapel was commissioned by Enrico degli Scrovegni, a Paduan lender. It is considered one of the masterpieces of Western art. Giotto di Bondone, considered the first of the Italian masters, painted the frescoes in the intimate space. Giotto, (1276-1337), is considered the most important Italian painter of the 14th century.“His works point to the innovations of the Renaissance style, which developed a century later,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Photo: K. Yung

I make no apologies. As a writer and parent, I feel perfectly entitled to take full advantage of my daughter’s experiences in Italy by wringing every possible story idea from it! Yes, our family did visit her there for a week, and while we saw so much in that time, we envied the luxury of time her three-month internship allowed. Check out my profile on Medium.com and find more stories about my daughter’s daytrips around northern Italy.

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Italy (Venice) Motherhood

My daughter and the peeping tom of Venice, Italy

It was scary to think how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Imagine being 22, female, and in Venice, Italy for a three-month internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. At 2 a.m. on the day your father plans to leave after helping you get settled for a week, you notice that the motion sensor outside your door is lighting up frequently. Too frequently, in fact, for this time of night. In addition, some of the lights are brighter than others. That’s odd.

You also hear strange noises outside. You ask your father to check the exterior heating/AC unit that you assume must be malfunctioning. He discovers not a malfunctioning appliance, but a rickety lawn chair that someone has been using to stand on so they can peek inside your apartment.

Read more about my daughter’s internship experience here.

The peeping tom had made his first appearance earlier that evening, after dark around 7:30. My daughter’s landlord–let’s call her Maria–had come over to help with the t.v. reception and while they were making adjustments, my husband and daughter had both noticed someone outside the apartment loitering in the walkway. They discussed the strange loiterer, but Maria eventually dismissed him, explaining that he was likely just someone from the neighborhood who was curious with the activity in the apartment since it had been vacant for quite some time.

So, in the middle of the night, when my husband ventured outside to check on the furnace and instead found a rickety chair, and a man with frizzy, shoulder-length hair rounding the corner about thirty feet down the corridor, real concern set in. Trying to assess the situation, my husband walked further down the corridor and noticed another lawn chair that had been stepped through around the corner. My husband immediately called Maria, who then immediately called the polizei.

While they waited for Maria and the police to arrive, both my husband and daughter tried to make sense of it all. Upon reflection, they both figured the peeping tom had ruined his first chair while peering in the window, and gone to retrieve another. My daughter also realized that the brighter lights from the motion sensor were more than likely flashes from a camera. Did he deliberately walk back and forth often enough to cause the motion sensor light to camouflage the camera flashes? It was scary to think about how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Fifteen minutes later, three uniformed police officers were there assessing the situation. Then, unbelievably, the frizzy-haired man sauntered by. Actually, because of the way the walkway turned, there was no way for him to avoid the small gathering without looking suspicious. He tried to play it cool, his camera hanging from his neck.

When my husband recognized the man, he nodded to the police officers who stopped the man and asked what he was doing out so late at night. He replied that he was a photographer taking night shots of the city.

Maria didn’t stand for it. Her Italian temper flared and her arms waved in anger. She accused him of spying and told him to leave the neighborhood and never return. She informed him that a police report was being filed at that moment and if anything happened later, he would be sorry. He was never seen again.

Although this was incredibly scary for me to hear about back in Missouri, it was good to know that, in general, Venice is a quiet municipality known to be “one of Italy’s safest cities.” The full-time resident population in the historic city center has declined dramatically in recent years, and today rests at about 55,000. We had researched the city’s crime statistics before our daughter left on her trip and were reassured. What causes the most trouble for the millions of tourists who visit each year? Pickpockets. What about violent crime? According to Frommers, it’s considered rare.

The next day, my daughter actually considered returning home; maybe this adventure was too much to take on and this incident was a sign that it just wasn’t meant to be. After an anxious day of pondering her options, she decided to stay; however, she did want to find a different apartment.

After attempting and failing to find an alternative rental with the help of my husband (who postponed his return flight for three days), my daughter returned to her original apartment, where Maria assured her she would be safe.

Still, my husband and my daughter took a few precautions. Before leaving, my husband helped her cover the windows with white paper. They figured that if a peeping tom had no view, there would be no temptation. They also made a point to meet the older woman, a Venetian native, living just across the passageway.

Over the next weeks, my daughter got on with her new Italian life. She began working a routine schedule at the museum and truly felt comfortable and at home there. She made many international friends. She became more brave and confident in her new surroundings.

Gradually, her strange experience became a distant memory. Most importantly, she didn’t let the peeping tom’s bad behavior define or detract from one of the most valuable experiences of her life so far. It had been a rough start, but she was determined to thrive.

Thanks for reading! If you found this post interesting, click like so others may more easily find it. Also, feel free to leave a comment on your own strange travel experiences.

Categories
Italy Italy (Venice) Motherhood parenting

Yes, send your daughter to Italy. Alone.

Last December 2, I backed out of the driveway headed for the rural middle school in southwestern Missouri where I teach language arts. It was 7:02 a.m. My phone rang. I saw it was my daughter. Awfully early to get a call. I wondered whether something was wrong.

“Mom!?”

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“I got the internship!” My heart soared. Two months earlier, she had applied for an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a modern art museum in Venice, Italy. She would venture to the beautiful floating city to undertake museum duties such as guarding masterpieces, giving presentations, hosting tours, and sculpture cleaning from Feb. 2 to May 2.

She was beyond excited. So was I, but now that her acceptance was official, it was impossible to imagine her moving to a foreign country and working for three long months away from her home, her language, her friends, her family, her life. The night she received the acceptance email, I lay in bed and cried.

I simply could not see it happening. but it did. True, it was a rough transition for everyone at first, but we made it, and it was a beautiful, life-changing experience… for her and me.

And let’s be honest, I realize this isn’t intimidating for everyone. Many kids and their parents have no problem doing this type of thing; however, for Midwesterners like us, just traveling to the coasts of the U.S. is a major excursion. In our eyes, Venice might as well have been Venus.

Internships that pay, like my daughter’s, are popular and highly valued. Study abroad programs are also. Should you ever be so fortunate as to have your child venture out alone on a similar endeavor, here are some tips to get you through it.

1. Be Strong. Even though I was excited, I was also scared for her, but I couldn’t let my reservations known. I had to be strong and encouraging because I knew that deep down she likely had reservations as well. Even though living in Italy and this particular internship had been her dream ever since we discovered it on Google, interrupting her college career and moving to a foreign country would definitely be outside her “comfort zone.” I had to show I was positive about this opportunity.

2. Send your spouse to get her settled. This was my first and best idea. My husband would fly over with her in January to help her get settled and accustomed to her new home. After all, she had never been to Italy, or even Europe for that matter. She had traveled with our family to South Africa five years earlier, and with a group of other college students and veterans to Vietnam in 2015. But Italy? For three months? Alone?

3. Make sure she doesn’t stand out. We Americans like our colors. Once my husband realized her bright floral umbrella could be spied far ahead through a crowd, he purchased her a black one. In looking at her Facebook posts that first week, I noticed her eye-catching, crimson-red purse.  I texted my husband to make sure to get her a black one of those, too. Maybe we were being overly protective, but after watching a few Youtube videos of tourists and residents walking around Venice, we knew the city is a labyrinth of narrow, sometimes dark, walkways interspersed with those picture-perfect canals. No reason to look like an outsider, especially if you’re female.

4. Use technology. Numerous Facetime calls, the app People Tracker, Facebook, and Instagram made Italy seem not quite so far away. She started a blog called “From Venice with Love” that kept her in touch with friends at home. Happily, her work and social schedule quickly filled her time, and posting to Facebook and Instagram became more convenient.

5. Send a care package. We waited a couple of weeks, but then sent things from home she couldn’t find there. For example, the Venice grocery stores she frequented didn’t carry American basics such as Ranch salad dressing or pancake syrup. Peanut butter is  hard to find. So are Ziploc bags.

6. Visit. If possible, visit for a short time about halfway through. This helped me understand the new lifestyle my daughter was experiencing. Her pictures and posts made more sense and I gained a new appreciation for the life-changing time she was having. Plus, it was Venice, people. We had to.

7. Break the trip into “chunks.” This made the trip seem more “doable.” My daughter’s internship broke down into three parts: one five-week period after my husband left, one weeklong chunk when we would visit, and finally one six-week chunk. Honestly, this last part flew by for both my daughter and I as she was finally comfortable and confidently knew her way around the city.

8. Pray. I relied on this daily. It was a great comfort to know that He would protect and care for her continually.

My daughter’s Venice experience was indeed life-changing. She now has an international set of friends she keeps up with daily through What’s App and she can’t wait to return and tour southern Italy. Her internship also confirmed her next steps: to complete her bachelor’s degree in Art Education and then pursue a master’s degree in Art History with the intention of working in a museum setting someday. She is already filling out applications for another overseas internship. I, on the other hand, am writing myself a note to re-read this post when she lands it.