Travel Biography - Week 28.

First, let me say Merry Christmas to you all. As this is Christmas eve, I wanted to know whether to detour from the weekly travel biography to write something to do with Christmas or to continue like any other weekend. Having given some thought, I decided to carry on with the memoir.

About Turin.

And so, after visiting Israel in 1976 and North America in 1977 and 1978, here in 1981, I was back in Italy for the first time since 1975. Furthermore, I made Turin my first stop to spend a couple of hours with my maternal grandparents, who lived in one of the residential estates near the huge car factory Fiat Mirafiori, where my grandad worked during his younger days. During my visit, he booked a hotel in Loano, on the Ligurian Coast, over the phone, and then drove me to Porta Nuova (New Gate) terminus station to board a train to the popular seaside resort.

Although Turin, or Torino in Italian, is a handsome city where the streets of the town centre are laid out in a symmetrical grid pattern, it wasn't classified as a tourist city in the same way as Rome, for example. But for those interested in the city's history, the Palazzo Madama is a civic museum of art, open to the public, but although I was aware of its presence, I was never taken there by my family during adolescence, nor had I ever made an effort to visit as an adult. Indeed, I have always been more interested in either ancient Roman or pre-Roman structures, along with natural features, rather than former aristocratic homes.

However, the Mole Antonelliana, originally a synagogue designed by the architect Alessandro Antonelli, stands 167.5 metres high, making it the city's icon. It was in 1971, whilst staying with my parents at my grandparent's home that I made my own way to the city centre to ascend to the viewing gallery, a mere 85 metres high. 

Mole Antonelliana, Turin.

The River Po flows east of downtown Turin on a 405-mile, 652 km route from the Alps mountain range to its delta on the Adriatic Sea, south of Venice. On a couple of occasions in 1971, I stood on its west bank, looking across the river towards Superga and Monte Aman. The church at Superga is famed for the airline crash which occurred on May 4th, 1949, when an Italian Airline Fiat G.212, containing the entire Torino football team, crashed into the church's retaining wall, killing all 31 people on board.

Indeed, 1971 was quite an eye-opener. The 1949 airline disaster was something I was told about back then, after telling the rest of my family where I had been. However, in 1981, all I did in Turin was pay a brief visit to my elderly maternal grandparents before continuing the journey to Loano.

From Loano to Pisa.

After three nights spent at Loano, I boarded a train to Genoa. I spent just a few hours at the port, gazing at the Italian Navy ships, reminding me that one of my uncles, Mum's younger brother, who was rebuked by his father in front of us all in 1971, had served on one of those ships before he married. In Genoa, I wasn't that interested in finding a hotel, instead, I decided to proceed further south to Pisa, famous for its Leaning Tower. Therefore, before long, I boarded another train for the journey to Pisa Central, a through station on the line from Torino Porta Nuova to Roma Termini. Once I arrived there, the first thing I did was to look for a hotel, as I was planning to spend a few days here. In next to no time, I came across what the Italians call a pensione, a European basic hotel where guests share a dormitory rather than being assigned an individual room. Unlike the more expensive Italian hotel, the pension hotel doesn't serve breakfast. As I see it, a pension is somewhere between a hotel and a hostel, and like in America, I had to see to my own breakfast, along with all other meals.

Although there was another single bed in the dormitory where I spent the following couple of nights, the other bed remained unoccupied, therefore having the room to myself throughout my stay.

The next day I spent at the Duomo, with the Leaning Tower just to the rear of the church. I paid my fee to ascend the spiral stairs winding inside the edifice. There was a strange sensation in both going up and back down the stairs, and I was wondering whether this was the day the tower would finally collapse. When I arrived at the roof viewing platform, the view all around was breathtaking, especially of the cathedral.

As I walked around the rooftop platform, leaning 5.5 degrees off vertical at the time, indeed the sensation I felt was unique. On one side I felt myself going up the curved slope, on the other side, I was walking downhill, and the floor remained slanted throughout. Yet it's this unique feature of this 56.26-metre-tall bell tower that has placed Pisa on the tourist map. Yet, the Basilica itself, with a separate baptizing font building in front of it, is an attraction in itself. When I entered, there was one piece of detailed artwork which caught my attention, and I found myself gasping with amazement and with a sense of horror.

Leaning Tower of Pisa.

As the Catholic laity living in a fully catholic country doesn't normally have any access to a Bible, the Catholic Church uses illustrations in their places of worship to portray the Gospel. These paintings are found in most Italian cathedrals, or il Duomo as it's called in Italian, and they were meant to present the Gospel to anyone who walks into the church when the Bible itself remains non-existent to the average Catholic layman.

The painting portrayed the two sides of the afterlife, with the Virgin Mary dominating the centre as if enthroned. On one side is the beauty of Paradise, with joyful souls enjoying the bliss of eternal life in Heaven. However, on the other side of the throne, Mary is painted staring mercilessly at the lost souls in Hell. The painting includes three people standing in a row, two men and one woman, all harassed by a demon as both men have their bellies ripped open and their intestines hanging out. The woman, in turn, has both her breasts misshapen as she cries out. Further on, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who exiled the Jews when he razed Jerusalem to the ground in 586 BC, was seen here tormented by the gleeful gaze of Satan. The souls of other people were depicted in their different stages of torment.

Indeed, the large wall mural was shocking, just as I have described it. Yet there it was, so brazen, so crass and flamboyant. It was meant to warn anyone who gazes at it to remain loyal and obedient to the Church. And I far as I remember, there was no restrictions in place to stop children from entering that part of the cathedral.

A Shock in Florence.

The next day, I took a train from Pisa Central to Firenze Santa Maria terminus. After arriving at the station, I was surprised at one issue, which is the multitude of voices of casual conversation filling the air within the typical U-shaped terminus, quite unlike the stiff atmosphere in a typical British station such as London Victoria or Waterloo. It was whilst I was at the station that I befriended another traveller, and we eventually agreed to meet at the Forte di Belvedere, up on the hill giving a fantastic panorama of Florence with its prominent Duomo.

Like in Pisa, here in Florence, I came across another pension hotel and checked in. Like in Pisa, this too had a dormitory where I was assigned a bed. But this time, I shared the room with several other guests, hostel-style. As I was preparing to meet my new friend at the Belvedere, I checked my pockets in readiness to cash another traveller's cheque, as I was about to run out of available cash. I searched - and searched. Indeed, I had my return train ticket to London, and I also had my passport, but as for the cheques, I couldn't find them anywhere, no matter I much effort I put into searching for them. Then the dawn of shocking realisation began to hit me. I gasped in panic! Forget meeting my new friend at Belvedere, instead, I had to report my loss to the city police dept.

As I tried to find the police station, I tried hard to think back to where and when I have lost my cheques. Furthermore, how much I lost. I can only give a rough estimate, for although I knew exactly how much I carried before I cashed any of them, no record was kept whenever I cashed a cheque. I had to depend on my memory of cheques already cashed.

The reception waiting room was bleak and with a melancholic atmosphere when compared with the liveliness and bustle of the city. I sat and waited for a long time, perhaps for more than an hour, before I was attended to. At last, I reported the crime to the police receptionist, who asked me several questions, including where I lost my cheques, when, how much in value I had, and in which currency. Eventually, the police took me at my word, and he prepared a document, a copy of that document he gave to me to present to the bank for reimbursement.

The snag was it was Friday evening and the banks had already closed for the weekend. I tried to work out just when and how the cheques were lost. Oh, I was foolish, so foolish! I had all my documents - passport, tickets, and the book of cheques all in my trouser pocket. And the train journey from Pisa to Florence was so packed that I had to stand on a crowded train. It was dead easy for a pickpocket to rifle through my documents without me being aware of what was going on. These thieves weren't mere opportunists. Rather, they were experienced to the level of professionals. They can steal without the victim sensing the slightest awareness. 

At the pension, I explained to the hotelier about my lost traveller's cheques, and I showed the police document to her, a true-to-image Italian lady in her thirties or older, charismatic and not unkind. Yet I was so embarrassed. As I was considering myself an experienced traveller by then, how could I be so flippant and stupid? Yet she understood. Who knows. It was likely that I was by no means the first tourist she had to deal with who was in the same predicament. She agreed to give me breakfast over the weekend and some cash to live on until I was reimbursed. Then she will bill me. I agreed and began to settle down to check out the city.

View of the Duomo, Florence, from the Fort of Belvedere.

I was amazed at the lively buzz of the city's nightlife. There were crowds on the sidewalks, and there were many restaurants and other shops open and trading late in the evening, whilst in the UK, by this time of the day all the shops would have been shut and the street deserted except for the occasional pubgoer. Here in Florence, the city was bustling with life, creating an energy which seem to electrify the atmosphere with a buzz of excitement.

At the hotel, I slept in an all-male dormitory. Unlike in Pisa, all the beds were taken. Although I was unaware at the time, this was a precursor to future travel, where I will be staying at backpacker's hostels continually until I marry Alex. But from that moment, that was a long way into the future!

The next morning, after I washed, shaved and dressed, the hotelier then took me into the small kitchen where I had breakfast. I was alone with her, no other guest joined me. It was a strange experience as if I was treated like an invalid. And in a sense I was. After I had eaten, she gave me some money so I can eat during the day, and even pay to visit one or two amenities. She also noted everything in her notebook, so she can bill me appropriately before I checked out.

And the loan covered a visit to the Duomo, the principal cathedral of Florence. This included a climb to the cupola above the dome, which is slightly higher than the accompanying bell tower, which is also accessible to tourists.

The next day, Sunday, included a stroll to the Forte de Belvedere, passing over the River Arno along the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge that has apartments fronted with shops on both sides. Crossing the river in the morning is in itself interesting. Here, I watched as the proprietors scrubbed the sidewalk directly outside their own shopfronts without crossing in front of the neighbouring property.

*************************************************************************

I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a prosperous year ahead. Stay safe and well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next Week: A hike along the Cinque Terre trail.