At first sight, a weird city. To be fair, we had entered through the back door, so to speak, via a rather unsightly (and extensive) industrial area. Now AW loves a good industrial area as much as the next guy, but this one was a a little decrepit – not a lot of businesses seemed to be doing so well, and some of the businesses that hadn’t done so well looked as though they hadn’t been doing so well since 1983. Now, 1983 was a great year for northern British new-wave synth-pop, but clearly not so great for northern Italian bathroom fittings or tiling manufacturers.
Once we’d fought our way clear of the sad and sorry industrial zone and hit Rovereto proper, we were still unconvinced. Our AirBnB host was knocking off one of his allowance of six-fags-a-day when we arrived; inhaling it with such urgency that we were genuinely concerned for his wellbeing. Try as we might to get him to enjoy his ciggie, he insisted on gasping it down so as to take us on a tour of the apartment, and a very generous overview of the city.
To cut a long story short, after a night and a day and a half we realised we’d misread poor Rovereto. It’s an interesting and quite beautiful city. The area around our apartment was home to some the best gelato we’d ever had (it gets AW’s vote as #1, JM still enthralled by the Veneto pistachio she had in ’13) and a lovely little bar that served the requisite bowl of chips and a local delicacy of (for want of a more continental descriptor) cheesy hash-browns as inclusive in the bill. All in the vicinity of the wonderfully named Piazza Fabio Filzi – quite the local hero – and with a backdrop of the gorgeous Eastern Alps of Trentino.
The next day we had to tear off, but nor before a quick look at the MART gallery, one of the most extraordinary galleries we’ve seen. For a town of 30-odd-thousand, this is a gallery to be proud of. it houses some genuine 20th century masterpieces, including works by Hanne Darboven – she of AW’s fourth thesis chapter…indeed, the very work AW investigated in said chapter. But so much more, arguably the world’s best collection of Italian Futurist work, and a serious bunch of de Chiricos. Throw in a fun and fabulous retrospective of Italian designer Armando Testa and you’ve got a serious dose of regret. That is, regret that we couldn’t spare just a little longer here. Never mind…that’s right: next time.
Ajax travels 