Verdi

We left Genova for Venice, our home for the next four nights. This involves crossing from west to east across the top of Italy, and as we were driving we had views of the snow-topped mountains to the north.

We stopped off on the way at Le Roncole, birthplace of Giuseppe Verdi. We saw his family’s home, where his father was the village drug dealer innkeeper, and licensed alcohol and tobacco seller. At age 10 he went to school in Busseto, the nearest town,  arranged by his patron Antonio Barezzi who’d heard him playing the organ at his local church (a paid job he’d had since he was eight) and, recognising his talent, sponsored his schooling. Barezzi later became Verdi’s father-in-law, when Verdi married his daughter. Le Roncole is also home to Giovannino Guareschi, author of Don Camillo.

 

The Verdi house

We then drove the short distance to Busetti itself, toured the opera house there then had lunch at an osteria that served food in the traditional way – no cutlery, no glasses for wine. We drank the local wine out of cups, and ate salumi, bread and cheese with our hands. It was a very meat-heavy meal – even the cheese selection was minuscule.

The Verdi opera house

After lunch, we went to the only part of Barezzi’s home which is still preserved – as a performance hall. There were heard a trio – harp, flute and double bass – accompany a soprano in a number of arias from Italian operas, with Bonnie joining in at one stage to accompany O Sole Mio.

The final leg of our journey brought us to Venice. One approaches the beautiful, historic canal city of Venice through what can be best described as an industrial wasteland, culminating in a water taxi from the equally industrial docks. We wound our way through the narrow canals to our hotel – taking a back way in which involved negotiating passage past some gondolas where there was squeaking room only. This was to deliver us to the water-level luggage entrance of the hotel, so we didn’t have to lug our luggage through the streets, but were met by burly porters who did all the heavy lifting.

Night was falling by the time we were ensconced in our room so instead of going out into the gloaming to explore, we decided to dine informally in the hotel’s bar. Several of our fellow guests had clearly arrived at the same decision so we joined them for dinner.