VicenzaPiù - Notizie, Inchieste, Analisi su Vicenza e provincia

Well, on Friday I was cycling across Piazza dei Signori, when to my surprise, I saw a large balloon with AIM written on it. Readers will know that AIM managers are under judicial investigation for their role in managing the polluting platform in Marghera, so I was surprised to see that they have turned over a new leaf. They were informing us that AIM is working for a cleaner Vicenza, with an exhibition to show little groups of school children what they are doing. I was a bit mesmerised - after all, after the long cold spell, the air was almost balmy.

Perhaps the air is contagious, and I'm balmy, too, I thought, but no, there they were. And then light dawned: this is Carnival season, this was AIM's idea of a joke. ‘A carnevale, ogni scherzo vale' goes the saying - in Carnival time, every joke's OK. Like their threat of forcing the GDV onto you for four months if you decide to buy your gas from them. This offer formed the cover of the GDV free-issue version ‘ La Città' twice this week. In fact, the cloakroom of the Bertoliana had a little pile of these AIM covers that students had left there.

And so I cycled on from our Palladian patrimony into the hinterland. My destination, Via Zamenhof in the industrial area behind Centro Palladio, off the main road to Padua. I had tried to reach it the previous day, but thrown in the sponge after finding no connecting cycling path from Stanga. I looked carefully on the map, and found a Via Veronese off Borgo Casale that seemed to lead into the area. But it seems that Italian civilisation is too much for American soldiers - at the end of Via Veronese is a big sign prohibiting entry, as it leads into the village inhabited exclusively by US personnel and their families, and off limits to locals. One wonders whether this is to protect them or us. It reminds me a bit of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, with the difference that the inhabitants are allowed out after dark. And so I cycled on through this spectral extra-urban landscape, past a couple of lakes still partially covered with ice, into the modernistic Via Zamenhof. One has to remember that Palladio was modernistic in his day, and who knows, perhaps Via Zamenhof will enter the annals of architectural history.
I was looking for a specific number, and found a lower number, a higher number, but not the one I was looking for, until a friendly mechanic pointed it out to me. To the uninitiated, Via Zamenhof is like a maze.
Incidentally, if you want a good description of the hinterland - God knows enough has been written about the centre- try and read ‘I 15000 passi' - the fifteen thousand steps - by Vitaliano Trevisan. This is the number of steps it takes the protagonist to walk from Polegge on the Marosticana to Piazza dei Signori. A depersonalising experience indeed describing how the once beautiful Veneto countryside has developed into an uneasy hotchpotch of fields, small factories and fast cars speeding through the impersonal industrial areas. It appears that things are going to get worse, as on the one side the US personnel are gobbling up the countryside around Dal Molin, and on the other, there is a disturbing plan to turn Laghetto into a concrete jungle. As usual, the council is reticent about giving details. It's worth remembering that when farming land becomes building land, someone stands to make a lot of money from the deal.
Well, back amongst the Palladian backdrop of Piazza dei Signori, I went in search of carnival fun on Saturday evening, but it seems that this is denied to adults - sleep tight, Mr. Dalla Pozza, the populace of the centre was not disturbed by carnival frolics, and the beggars were notable by their absence - so at eight in the evening, the only signs of carnival were the confetti left by the children in the afternoon, and one little boy dressed as spiderman in Osteria del Vicolo in Stradella Santa Barbara. Even the jokers from AIM had faded out from under the St. Mark's Lion glumly surveying the almost deserted square.
I trundled my bike past the one-euro shop in Contrà Santa Barbara, and noticed the facemasks in the window. My eyes were drawn to a small notice: ‘Aperto Domenica'. Open on Sunday. Well, I'm going to buy a one-euro mask this Sunday afternoon, and walk around the square. On Monday evening, perhaps, and Tuesday, too. If anyone comes up to me, and says: "Are you Bob?" I will reward them with a glass of one-euro wine. A glass of Cabernet, perhaps, at the Cursore. Not for the faint-hearted, they also have a one euro Sangiovese, 13%, enjoyed more with a small plate of their excellent ‘nervetti', which I think is what we would call calf's muscle.
Enjoy the end of Carnival!