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Published: September 24th 2016
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My summer ‘job’ was working as a tutor at English-learning summer camps in Italy with an organization called ACLE. They coordinate camps all over Italy, but mostly in the north. Most are 1 or 2 weeks long, and tutors usually stay with a host family at each camp.
ACLE’s style is to teach English through games, songs, and drama. They create all of their own material, so they want tutors to be adept at working with it. That’s why they have a week-long orientation before tutors can start working in camps. The orientation I went to took place on a golf course, near a town called Castellaro, near San Remo on Italy’s northwest coast.
Orientation week was a difficult time for an introvert like me, where almost every moment consisted of small talk, games, singing songs, or performing. A job advertised as ‘tutor in performing arts camps in Italy’ probably attracted a high percentage of extrovert/performer types. It was also the first time I’d been around so many native English speakers (180ish) probably since I finished AmeriCorps, about 10 months before. After so many months of speaking either Spanish, or speaking English to non-native speakers
Center of Mestre
Lovely town center and it's incredible that it's so close to Venice without all the tourists for the most part, all of the quick speech full of slang from around the English-speaking world was also overwhelming. I made it through the week.
I found out my first camp, a two-week one, would be right next to Venice! What luck! Everyone wants to go to Venice. When I was hired to come to Italy, I decided that Venice was a place that wasn’t on my must-see list. In fact, my must-do list was something like, “see the north, see the middle, see the south, see some art, see some history, eat some gelato, eat some pizza, avoid the tourists as much as possible”.
My camp was a bus ride away from Venice, but I only went there on a day trip on the Saturday. Looking back on that camp, we hung out a lot with the helpers, who are older teens who assist at camp. They tend to have really great English and were enthusiastic to show us around. We’d go out for gelato or apertivo (which is basically getting drinks and food comes with it). Some of them go to high school on Venice, which is crazy, because it seems
to always be crammed full of tourists.
We also met some of them in Venice, which was really convenient, because they knew their way around. I’ve heard people have had a lot of problems using Google Maps in Venice, so beware that you will probably get lost. And if my parents are any indication, it’s bigger and more confusing to get around that you think.
Venice was exactly what I expected. It looked like the pictures we’ve all seen. It was full of tourists and overpriced. The city is impressive—it’s crazy to imagine them dreaming it up and constructing it.
The highlights for me were ferry rides and going to Murano. We each bought a 24-hour public transportation ticket for 20 euros, which includes ferry rides, buses, and trams within Venice/Mestre. *If you look carefully, you can also buy individual ferry tickets! It was a different perspective to ride down the canals in ferries.
Murano is an island known for glass. You can go into glass shops, and some of them have studios where you can watch artisans make glass. You just have to be very careful, because
you don’t want to knock into something worth thousands of euros. There were also fewer tourists there, so you had a bit more breathing room.
On the Sunday, I was planning just to lay around my host family’s house and relax because I hadn’t had free time away from people since I’d been in Ourense. But they convinced me to go on a daytrip somewhere. My main choices were Verona or Padua (Padova in Italian). I chose Padua because it was closer and cheaper.
It turned out to be one of my favorite cities (not counting towns because I love so many towns!) in Italy (the others being Treviso and Matera). Part of its charm was the lack of tourists, but in fact, on Sundays up until 3 or 4pm in Italy and Spain, no one really is out and about much. In both places, lots of shops and grocery stores are closed as well.
Padua is a university city, so it was neat to feel that a bit when I happened upon the Prato della Valle park, where people were hanging out on the grass chatting. There was a monthly
antiques market surrounding the park, which was cool to shop through (the 3
rd Sunday of the month).
The city’s most notable architectural features are probably lots of colorful buildings which tend to have arcades. These create covered walking paths next to the road which protect you from the sun, rain, and vehicles. There is also a canal around most of the city, and it’s reminiscent of Venice how the buildings are right next to it.
There are three tourist attractions of note in Padua that I heard about. One is the University Botanical Garden, which is the oldest botanical garden in the world (in fact, the first), which would have been cool, but was expensive. If I were there for two or three days, I defo would check it out. Another is a series of frescos by Giotti in the Scrovegni Chapel. Apparently it’s very influential and beautiful, but you have to book tickets at least three days in advance . . .
The third is a pilgrim destination, St. Anthony’s Basilica. Something I’m coming to realize is that usually pilgrimage sites are free, as well as basilicas in Italy. So
you might have to pay to visit a cathedral in Italy, but not if it’s a pilgrimage site. This was the only area all day that I saw any tourists/tourist infrastructure in Padua. It wasn’t that remarkable of a church, but if a big church is free, I usually go in to check it out.
As I was making my way back to the train station in the late afternoon, the plazas became alive with locals sitting at tables al fresco having coffee or drinks with friends. Truly, the best parts of traveling aren’t tourist attractions, but taking in the atmosphere of the place. Padua offered a lot of chances to stroll the peaceful city and people-watch, which is why it’s one of my favorites. If you're in the area of Venice, and want a more genuine-feeling place in Italy to visit, I'd suggest either Padua or Treviso (I'll write about Treviso two posts from now).
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