Early Morning Italian Adventure - Scavenger Hunt

For the scavenger hunt, Leora, Angela, and I received the riddle:

To whom she gave the cross, we just don’t know.

But she gave her name to an Isle facing the Lido.

On a pitch where you don’t throw,

Find some giocatori and take a group photo.

When I initially read the riddle I was super stumped. Because I was on a train with no wifi and sub-par data, I put the riddle aside and made a note on my phone to look into it when we arrived at our destination. I popped in my headphones to listen to some Baroque music and drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, Leora and Angela were very excited as they had cracked the riddle and they knew exactly where we were going. They brought me up to speed and explained the riddle.

Giocatori translates to players, and “On a pitch where you don’t throw” references soccer, or as they call it in Europe, “Football”. We determined we were headed to a soccer park to find some players to take a pic with.

Full disclosure, I would have totally not cracked the riddle that fast because soccer is not my jam. I played when I was little, but being unaggressive as I am, once I got knocked down during a game, I walked off the field to my mom and told her I was ready to go home. I have not played soccer since. I am aware of the existence of a really famous player named Cristiano Ronaldo, but that’s the extent of my soccer knowledge.

We made plans to leave for Venice early in the morning and find our park, as well as any exciting adventures we might find on the journey. The city was gorgeous early in the morning as we made our way towards our destination. On our way to and from the park we saw a lot of dogs. One thing I’ve noticed about Venetian dogs is that they tend to be really well behaved, especially with so many people and excitement all around. I’m not sure what is the cause of this phenomenon, but it is very noticeable. Maybe it’s a culture thing, but I’m not really a dog person or a world traveler so I do not know if culture differences trickle down to man’s canine besties.

We asked several locals about where we could find the soccer park. As we got further away from San Marco and closer to residential areas, there were less people walking around. Some locals we asked did not speak much English, or even any English at all, and sometimes our interactions consisted solely of me asking “Football?” Even if the people we talked to did not speak English, they usually were willing to try and help. Our interactions between tourist and locals were sometimes awkward, but usually very friendly. I’m not so sure that foreign tourists in a city like New York would be met with the same friendliness. We eventually found our way to the soccer field which was by a nice park and a neighborhood. There were no “giocatori” playing soccer, so we took a picture of ourselves on the field.

After we had completed the scavenger hunt, we walked around the park and the residential area near it. One thing I saw that met my stereotypical expectations of romanticized Italy was laundry strung up high above the street hanging out to dry. That is something I have never seen where I live. In suburban America, we tend to be private about our laundry. I don’t invite my friends to come hang out in the dorm basement as I load my clothes into the dryer. I think that this not only speaks to Foucault’s idea of public versus private space, but also how different cultures mark this distinction. Perhaps in Italy, laundry falls in the realm of public space, but it remains part of the private domain in my American culture.

We later met up with a friend at the Acqua Alta bookstore, which was another group’s scavenger hunt location, and it was super cool. Definitely my favorite shop we visited and it seemed to appeal to both locals and tourists in equal measures. While we were at the Acqua Alta bookstore, there was also a bit of a real Acqua Alta. I had not experienced a morning Acqua Alta before, and I took the flooding as my que to head back to San Servolo and check into my flights. When I returned to Venice later in the afternoon via vaporetto, the city was dry and we all walked around and made the most of our last full day in Italy.

--Ally