Italy 32 - A wonderful mosaic floor

---

Feel that I did an injustice in my last blog on Ferrara. The city was as nice as many Italian cities we had seen. A pretty cathedral sits in the city square which as usual is full of street cafes. The cathedral seemed a mix of the style of cathedrals Pisan with a touch of Tuscan architecture thrown into the mix. We didn’t go inside the church – sometimes you can be all churched out. They begin to blend one into the other. The city was bustling but then perhaps this was because it was a Saturday morning. We enjoyed it very much and perhaps would return again.

From Ferrara we drove to the small and little known town of Aquilea. Very few people know of this large outpost of the Roman world. With a population of 100,000 at its height it has all the trappings of Roman living – an amphitheartre, a forum, a market place and a large number of gravestones which must have lined the route of the dead.

Camping Aquileia is set in a woodland site and has lovely large pitches and few visitors. The ACSI card meant that the cost of the pitch for the night was just 16 euros. A big bonus when you are camping. We are getting to love our ACSI card as it makes camp sites affordable. There was a small reception with very friendly man running the desk. He looked the architypal Italian stallion dressed in shorts and with a tan that looked as if he spent all day in the sun. He pointed out we could park anywhere we liked, showed us the toilet facilities and hook ups, the swimming pool which I could use if I liked as long as I had a swimming hat . A new word added to the vocabulary – a cuffia piscine of which I had none. There was one other Brit on site and the rest Dutch and German as usual mingled in with a few Austrians. There was a restaurant and bar next door and we called over to get a quick refreshing coke before setting the van up for the night. Mr Reception man left his post and went to sunbathe whilst there was no-one requiring his immediate attention. The site was quiet and I did get my swim in the end after persuading him that I did not wear a hat at home. By the poolside I smiled at the imaginative use of the roman capitals as tables beside the swimming pool. Nothing Roman goes to waste here. The restaurant next door had Doric columns either side of their doors as door stops.

Dinner was bread and cheese with salad as usual. The staple diet of motorhoming I guess – quick and easy to prepare, cheap and cheerful as long as the temperature is hot. It was in fact 34degrees even at 8 in the morning . It augers well for the next few days. Hold that thought!!!!

The predominant bird on site seemed to be the Jay of which there were many.

We called at the local supermarket across the road from the campsite. We try to use the local amenities whenever we can and stocked up on staples, a few loaves of bread and salad stuffs. There wasn’t much choice there to be honest but it would last us a few days. We felt we needed to save a bit of money as it seems to be going through our hands like water at the moment and we have another few days before we enter Croatia and use our supply of kuna.

In the early evening when the sun died down and the weather cooled we walked amongst the ruins . Columns scattered everywhere, 1930’s archaeologists making a bit of a cats face of digging the sites and preserving the remains. I am sure if the site was excavated now it would look very different and be cared for more impressively. We saw a number of buses arriving through the afternoon and visitors wandering through the ruins.

The basilica was impressive from the outside and I was looking forward to seeing the impressive mosaic stone floor I had heard about . There were small piazzas dotted around the town with a few restaurants..

The weather changed overnight, we had left the sun roof open and a storm blew up. What a storm it was. Anyone who has been in Italy will realise just how shortlived a storm can be but how impressive. The sky lit up with the lightening and the thunder banged for hours overhead. It sounded as if some God or Gods were being rattled and were very upset with the world. Being under a tree meant that all the leaves and seeds were blown off and collected inside the roof light. No mean job to clean them out. The storm raged all night and we wondered if it would ever end. It was the sort of storm that mum would have hidden under the stairs to avoid. The rain drummed on the roof of the van.

The next day the weather had changed. The sun had disappeared and coats were brought out again to protect against the chill winds. Our neighbours the Brits braved the weather and went out on their bikes. We had a quick shower, not the best of showers we have seen so far and the toilets were without toilet paper or toilet seats. Two things I hate Turkish toilets and toilets without seats.

The bells in the local church rang and we decided after to dinner to head up to the ruins . Another new word learnt – scavi ruins. Dinner was a poor attempt at spaghetti cooked in the slow cooker. I left it too long and it turned out too stodgy and lumpy. Perhaps my next attempt will be better. We ate it listening to Queen on the IPad. Such good music and such a loss of a good musician when Freddie Mercury died. I am sure our neighbours must have thought us odd as we sang loudly “ We want to break free”

On our way out we spoke to our little reception man who was trying in vain to clean the leaves from the swimming pool. A job that looked like painting the Forth Road Bridge. He started at one end with his cleaning net clearing out the leaves but by the time he got to the end he had to start again as it was full leaves again.

We walked along what was the Roman Forum wondering what had possessed the archealogists to show the features the way they did. Much of the stones had been robbed out for the church. Bits of Corinthian colums concreted in to terracotta posts. Pediments placed on top of walls. Nothing really in its context. It took a lot of imagination to work out what the place might have looked like.

The church has the most magnificent s mosaic floor I have ever seen. It is intact and in the right context. When Glenn visited years ago you could walk on the floor as it was unprotected however now they have installed a glass floor to protect it which gives a very odd feeling when you walk on it. The basilica was free but it cost 3 euros to see the two crypts and 2 euros to climb the belltower. Foolishly I had left my money in the van so we could do neither. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the town before returning back to the van to sort out our reverse polarity on the electrics. This was the first time this had happened and we were equipped with a connector that Glenn had made before we left home so we easily sorted out the problem. We give the van a bit of a clean. It is surprising how dusty it becomes after a few days of use. As the weather felt more like Warwick than Italy we felt happy enough cleaning and catching up on chores.

During the evening a young Italian couple and their friends turned up with their tent. We enjoyed watching their antics trying to put up two tents in the wind. Their car blocking the driveway stopping anyone coming in or going out. Delegation of work was interesting with one guy doing all the work and his friend and the two girlfriends standing by watching him. First he put up the tent and then blew up the airbeds and afterwards helped his friend erect his tent and blow up the air beds again. Not sure who was the fool there.

Highlights of the first week - Rothenburg - , ,Mantova , walking in the steps of the Borgias in Ferrara , the mosaic floor in the basilica in Acquilea.

Plans for week 2 Grado, Redipuglia, Sistiania and Croatia .

---