Italy 102 - our last days in Italy watching coypu, seeing mosaics and wandering around the graveyard of the caduti

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Our base for the next night was to be Camping Acquilea . Glenn has been here more times than he cares to remember . This is my second visit. The camping site is much as it was three years ago when we last visited. Mr Adonis was still there, still tending to his pool but this time round he looked much older and the sun had not been kind to him. The pool was not open as he and his wife were trying to stop water leaching out and ground water from leaching in. It seemed like they were trying to paint the Forth Road Bridge and were getting nowhere. The facilities were closed as it was early in the season. Later a café and a small shop would open. The toilets were less clean than last time we were here. The shop across the road was still open and was handy for topping up essentials. The trees were in bud so the site was not too dark and gloomy and we could see the roman remains we had come to see again just across the field . The campsite was relatively empty just like we like it.

This town when it was a roman port housed over 100 thousand souls . Now the town barely supports 3500. The Roman remains were much the same as last time. Nothing moved and nothing more dug out. Stones just abandoned along the way. We saw a coypu swimming in the water. He wasn’t bothered about us and swam alongside us quite happily. Ambling away up the waterways in search of food . He seemed oblivious to us watchers. And this time we were not bitten to within an inch of our lives by the mosquitoes that live in the waterways left by the Romans.

Would we find anything new to see ? If you visit London or any big city you can go more than once and always find something new to see. We have done the museum here and we have seen the mosaic floors . Could there be anything to see that we had missed? We had not been up the belltower but given Glenns vertigo we didnt think it would be sensible to climb its steps. Instead we walked around it admiring its structure and simple beauty.

Well yes there was more to see .



Our first stop the cemetery to the Caduti behind the church. We had never realised it was there before. Tucked away with just a discreet sign. A quiet graveyard not particularly big. Dark and gloomy and hidden behind the church. . A stone book carved with the names of the dead . Graves all uniform just like the First World War cemeteries in France but this time the headstones were not stone and were not white . Metal fancy crosses. None with names on them. Again men who had died for their country and were buried with honour but without a name. Their names as always known only to God. We stood a while in silence thinking of all those lives lost. All those families saddened by the fact that they would never see son, brother , father or uncle again. It was a sad place.

Our next stop the church. The floor was as magnificent as three years ago . It is a lovely church with a wonderful example of a floor still where it should be. Not taken up bit by bit and displayed in some museum. This church is still used. This floor is still walked on. We joined the masses who were enthralled with it all . But what we didn’t know was there was more.

For the small fee of 4 euros each we could go down into the crypts. The first had the foundations of the older church and the streets below the modern town. There were the foundations of the belltower and more mosaic flooring. This time some Christian in motif but many of zodiacal signs. It was stunning and highly unexpected. And few people down there which was a bonus. We wandered for some time amongst the ruins admiring and oooohing and aaaahing at the sites we could see. Stunning was not the word for it. Inspirational and moving. The second crypt was smaller and housed a small chapel full of freshly painted frescoes .

We were stunned that we had missed both these treats before and were so glad to have found the time to come round again and see the bits we had missed before.

Strange how you can find a place you love and still keep on visiting it and find something new each and every time. In some ways we want to tell the world about it but then again I think we should keep it our little secret .

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Beautiful Mosaic
Perfect