Giotto and the Hedgehog

Today we’ll deal with lighter themes. Italy in summer, and more particularly Padova in August. Like all Italian cities there is an exodus to the coast and foreign resorts, but the August shut down, I’m told, is less than previously, with people taking shorter breaks or realising there is a good tourist market to be exploited.

With temperatures around 30C during the day, dropping to 24 or 25 by night, life moves outdoors particularly during the evening. Sure, some of our favourite bars for the evening aperitivo may be shut, but there are plenty more. Unlike an English heatwave, there is rain. It comes in sudden thunderstorms that roll down from the mountains, their stentorian grumble signalling fresher air and temporary coolness. The flowers and vegetation are a panoply of colours, creating exotic evening scents that waft in the breeze.

There is plenty of free outdoor entertainment. Earlier this week there was a superb jazz concert with the group playing on a somewhat lobsided stage in the middle of the river that would have had every jobsworth UK health and safety officer reaching for the electricity switch. Portello River Festival http://www.portelloriverfestival.org/new/index.php?lang=english

The music was great and as the tempo speeded up the stage bobbed up and down in rhythm. Last night there was improvised theatre.

There’s a whole array of ‘sagre’ (plural of sagra).   http://www.provincia.pd./index.php?page=guida_sagre_feste

These are local village festivals involving food, drink, and music (this is Italy after all…..). Sagre have their origins in village fairs which themselves may derive from historical pageants or Saints’ days and often feature some specific foods. Tonight’s is dedicated to fish and horse meat (yes, sis, I will only eat fish!), others feature frogs, chestnuts, and onions among other foods. To play it safe head for one featuring cheese, or olive oil. Some claim to feature wine, akin to a pub stating ‘we sell beer’.

Back in Padova, there is a whole gamut of paid for al fresco entertainment. A personal favourite is the open air cinema. No money back if it rains, but in Padova, the weather is generally predictable, and the occasional storms sharp and short. The two open air cinemas take place in beautiful parts of the medieval city. One of these is set in the gardens of the Giotto museum, which backs onto the  Scrovegni Chapel, decorated by Giotto and one of the masterpieces of the early renaissance.

And the hedgehog? A showing in this venue of the sensitive film adaptation of Muriel Barbery’s novel the Elegance of the Hedgehog. As with virtually all movies in Italy, the film is dubbed into Italian, which limits the appeal to tourists.

I’m sure Giotto a man of great humour would have approved. Giotto’s best friend stated ‘there was no uglier man in all of Florence’, but the artist’s humour was revealed when Dante once visited him.  Dante asked how a person who painted such beautiful things could create such plain children to which Giotto riposted ‘I made them in the dark’.

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