Mantova at First Sight

As soon as Mantova came into view over the horizon, I was struck by its beauty. That original feeling hasn’t left me yet. Everything in this city is beautiful. The streets, the buildings, the clothes, the food, everything. Not only that, but the people here are far nicer than in any city that I’m familiar with. If I’m being honest, for a while I found myself searching for hidden cameras and fake walls, convinced that the city I was in was far too perfect to be real. The city is surrounded by water, and has river ways running through and under it as well, creating some stunning scenery. There are almost innumerable gorgeously constructed and beautifully designed cathedrals and churches dotted around the city that provide a calm, peaceful atmosphere and add to the impossible level of serenity I’ve been trying to describe here. In addition to that, there is a certain tree shedding its seeds this time of year, and those seeds float around through the air like snow. Because of this, Mantova appears to be in a perpetual blizzard, despite the clarity of the weather and the brightness of the sun.

My orientation was admittedly rather short. We mostly took a “hit the ground running” approach, which I and the rest of my group have decided we prefer. A few of the orientation-type things we did do, however, include a brief presentation and video from the director of the school we are attending, a city-wide scavenger hunt (that none of us managed to complete) and a tour of the local museum and historically significant churches. While the presentation was rather dry, the scavenger hunt, while ultimately a failure, was immensely fun and the tour was eye-opening, and taught us a lot about how the City of Mantova participated in the history of Italy. I’d like to go into these things more right now, but I think they are topics I will save for a later post.