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The trip over was expectedly long. I wish I had been able to sleep more than a few hours, but there were two movies I’d been wanting to see for quite some time so I watched “Still Alice” before my nap and “ Selma“ after my nap. Because of my Mom, “Still Alice” was far more memorable and Julianne Moore’s portrayal of a woman with Alzheimer’s was frighteningly realistic.We arrived in Milan primed to be in Italy where life is good, inefficient, but good. The lines for passport control were incredibly long. The only place we’ve been in longer lines in in the Bahamas where laid back is the name of the game. I had made train reservations from Milan’s central train station for about 3 hours after we landed since I knew it was nearly an hour-long train ride from the airport to the central train station. I thought we’d catch an earlier train, but we made the scheduled train with only a few minutes to spare.
We were hungry and tired so the scenery mattered less than lunch and a nap. We had rented an apartment in Padua and picked up the keys at a small hotel where the desk clerk was super friendly. He walked us the four blocks to the apartment and made sure we were settled.
In Padua, the Scrovegni Chapel with frescos by Giotto was reputed to be remarkable. They admit 25 people in at a time. After spending 15 minutes in a separate room in which they equalize the temperature and humidity to that required to maintain the frescos they let you in to the chapel. Photos were not allowed so here’s a link to a video that shows what we saw:
. It was spectacular. Many wealthy Italians made their fortunes as bankers, “Money Lenders”. In the Catholic Church, money lending was a sin that would land you in purgatory or hell, unless…you guessed it, the get-out-of-hell card was to spend money on art for the church. No matter how much money you lent, if you built a spectacular church or monastery you and all your family got to go to heaven. The Scovegni Chapel sent generations of Scrovegni to heaven.
Padua is a small apparently well off city. Either they hide their poverty really well, or it is limited. Unlike the other places we’ll visit there are relatively few tourists. While it is the third most popular city to visit in the region, the numbers must fall off pretty steeply after Venice.
