I had forgotten what the daily struggle can feel like. Not the walking; that has been easy for the most part, and all the more so over the course of these shorter, flatter days. No, the struggle to find open wifi. In Emilia Romagna, the region has done a fantastic job of making public wifi accessible in just about every town; most impressive of all, it actually works. I’ve been in other towns and cities with big signs trumpeting the availability of wifi, but outside of Emilia Romagna and Umbria, the failure rate was prodigious.
Alas, yesterday I departed Emilia Romagna and entered the Veneto, and two days of evidence would suggest that the region has little interest in wifi. Last night in Polesella, I made two sweeping arcs of the town before finally finding a viable signal, outside a store. It was slower than the service in the bar, with a podcast episode download taking 15 minutes, but at least it existed. Today in Rovigo, meanwhile, I’m sitting on the steps of the memorial to the fallen, capitalizing on free wifi offered by the MaxMara clothing store. It’s having an even more difficult time of downloading an episode. Forget about uploading videos to Patreon; I might need to make a detour to McDonald’s tomorrow on my way into Montselice, but I’ll do some more wifi signal hunting later this afternoon.
While the struggle is real, and on some occasions particularly frustrating, I’m also mindful of the fact that it pulls me into the public, into busy areas, instead of allowing me–or requiring me–to shutter myself in the privacy of my room. As I type, Rovigo residents are strolling through the piazza on this sunny Sunday morning. A tourist train, covered with balloons, passes by every 15 minutes or so, stuffed full of beaming children. Bicycles are everywhere, a theme of the past few days. This is flat country, the American Midwest of the Italian peninsula, and as in Iowa everyone is out pedaling. Music is thumping from just around one corner, while the duomo looms down another. Dogs are nearly as ubiquitous as bikes.
A lack of wifi stings more acutely at this point in the trip. I knew, of course, that pilgrim traffic would be light on many of these Italian routes, especially given the time of year when I was walking. I still had hope that I would have at least a little more company than I did on the US trek. Aside from the last week on the Francesco, though, there really hasn’t been that great a difference, and whereas I set forth on the American Discovery Trail coming off a full year of teaching, ready for some alone time, I may be hitting the upper limits of my solitude quotient. Wifi is helpful for getting work done; some of this writing requires me to do some searches for relevant information. It’s more important at this point, though, for inspiring a sense of connection. Even if I’m not actively emailing or engaging with people at home, the mere possibility of doing so takes the edge off.
An Australian shepherd just tried to pounce on my foot. Three old men just walked past, one insistently shoving his phone in his peers’ faces. A terrier just used every muscle in his body to steer his owner over to a potted plant, which absolutely required his marking. Maroon 5 is singing about payphones. A little girl is pushing herself forward on a scooter, just as the tourist train circled back around the corner. She’s fine.
There’s a clear line dividing solitude and loneliness. One central distinction is that you can be lonely in a crowd, and that certainly rings true every time I lift my head to take in the scene. Much has been written about the “loneliness epidemic” in the US and UK, among other places. Thinking back on these past months in Italy, I couldn’t help but wonder if Italy had somehow cracked the code, manufacturing and preserving a relentless and vibrant sense of community that holds true from south to north. A quick search, though, called such assumptions into question. Euronews wrote about “a hidden loneliness crisis is haunting Italy.” The central story is particularly disturbing, focused on an elderly woman who died in isolation and wasn’t discovered for two years. Rather than an isolated case, Italian activists claim, “a cobweb of cultural, demographic and structural issues have left Italy with one of the highest levels of loneliness and social isolation in the world.” A 2021 report, based on self-reporting surveys, had Italy as the 5th loneliest country in the world. With over 28% of Italians over the age of 65 living alone, there’s a great risk of isolation for the elderly, especially for those outside of urban zones.
This reality is so utterly at odds with everything I have the capacity to witness as a visitor, even one who has spent ten weeks traveling across Italy at ground level, that it forces me to call into question every observation I’ve made, every notion I’ve cultivated. Seeing is believing, but it’s also omitting, distorting.
That’s a sentiment that inevitably arises, though it feels considerably less damning, when passing through historical fault lines, as I also did over these past two days. The walk from Ferrara to Polesella, barely over 20km, first split through agricultural country before “climbing” up (this was the big, 5m ascent of the day) to the embankment overlooking the Po River. A bridge crosses the Po into Polesella, and it also marks the edge of a major naval battle that occurred here in 1509 between the Duchy of Ferrara and the Republic of Venice. The erstwhile allies and neighbors finally came into open conflict over possession of the Veneto, performing a veritable tug-of-war between these flat, marshy lands. The Ferrarese had enjoyed the upper hand near the turn of the century, but by 1509 Venice had reclaimed much of the region. That wasn’t enough. On the contrary, the Venetians were indignant about what they asserted were undue Ferrarese abuses during their brief time in power, and so they wanted to add injury to insult with a special punitive raid.
This did not go well. After some initial successes, the Venetian naval force, which included 17 galleys, saw its progress thwarted at Pontelagoscuro. In response, they hit the pause button, mooring their fleet on the banks of the Po between Polesella and Guarda Veneta, where my walk led this morning. Despite the dry conditions of late, I couldn’t help but notice the standing water beneath the groves of trees alongside the Po. This is an area that floods with ease and drains lethargically. Such was the case, probably to an even greater degree, in the early 1500s, and the Ferrarese made good use of their knowledge of these trends. With heavy rains in the forecast, they maneuvered into a position from which they could stealthily install their artillery on an embankment within range of the Venetian fleet. When the flooding occurred, this elevated the Venetian boats, suddenly shifting them from a defensible position to one that was completely exposed. Rarely has the term “sitting ducks” been more apropos; the Venetian fleet was ruthlessly bombarded, its soldiers slaughtered. 15 of the 17 Venetian galleys were lost, along with 2,000 men. Duke Alfonso I d’Este returned home to celebrate with his wife, Lucrezia Borgia.
From Polesella to Rovigo, I worked my way from the Po River to the Adigetto, via a series of canals. This area is known for corn; mercifully, there’s little sign of it thus far. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime. While the Ferrarese successfully held the line for a time at the Po River, that left Rovigo in Venetian hands from 1482 onward, for the better part of three centuries. Only after a different occupier took over–the French in the early 19th century–did the city reassert itself, transforming its urban center into the warm, vibrant space that it is today.
After an hour in the piazza, I strolled over to the Seminario Vescovile, where I had arranged for accommodation. Father Luca greeted me in English and explained that we would have lunch at 1:30, with his parents and another pilgrim. I did a double-take. Lunch? Company? Another pilgrim? Immediately after, I met the Danish pilgrim, who is working his way south on the Cammino, just as he was preparing to throw a load of clothes in a washing machine. A washing machine?! My warm layer is the most offensive thing to come out of America this year, having gone almost two full months without a wash, so I ripped it off in that very moment to add to the load.
It’s a classic “The Cammino Provides” moment, falling into conversation mere minutes after bemoaning the dearth of it. Returning to the piazza later, the Italians around me seemed every bit as happy to be there as they had this morning. And I was right there with them.
