The lake

Verona, Italy, spring 2015

It was a day beginned like many others: I had just left the house, had closed the door, put my hat on and checked the time. As soon as I started walking along the sidewalk towards the office, something was hitting me from behind but with not enough force to make me fall. At first I was disoriented and did not understand, until I saw a guy on a bicycle running in the same direction I had started, biking away quickly. Was it possible he didn't noticed he had hit me? Maybe yes, in fact it was going very fast. I was baffled because he hadn't stopped to apologize, but still started walking, after checking I hadn't lost anything on the sidewalk.

In front of me the ancient city stood out in all its beauty: I standed in the main street, full of historic buildings and characteristic places. At the bottom appeared a roundabout with a monument in the center. The bars were opening for breakfast, cars were moving slowly in traffic, a few bicycles passed them to the right, someone tried to stop a bus by waving their hand. The sun was still low on the horizon and filtered through a light blanket of fog above the buildings. Looking in perspective along the street it seemed the city did't end, because the buildings occupied all the free space on the sides of the street. At a certain point, continuing to walk, although distracted by the noise of the cars, I distinctly heard a high-pitched noise that repeated itself at shorter and shorter intervals until it died out completely. Even still slightly dozing I could hear where the noise was coming from, and see that something had just fallen out of the pocket by the guy who hit me, and was rolling to the side of the road. I tried to see where that object had stopped, hoping to recover it to see if it was of any value. It glistened because it reflected the sunlight: I approached it and realized that it was a coin. Disappointed, I took the coin and put it in my pocket, without looking at it. The bus was arriving and I had not yet reached the stop, so I lengthened my pace. I took the bus and got off eight stops further on and arrived at the office. I took off my jacket and took a seat at my desk, forgetting that event.

Verona is an historic city, rich in monuments dating back to the Romanesque and Renaissance periods and museums of history and science. The most picturesque part is the historic area to the north east, near Ponte Pietra, the basilica of s. Anastasia and the cathedral of s. Maria Assunta. Going up from Ponte Pietra towards colle S. Pietro, you can reach one of the most beautiful viewpoints over the city, where you can admire the entire historic center bordered to the north and east by the Adige river. By here you can see the bell tower of S. Anastasia and the cathedral, wich exterior is a fine example of Veronese Gothic architecture with early Renaissance. Ponte Pietra is particularly beautiful as the only one left from the Roman era and consists of five arches of different lengths: the shoulder and the two arches date back to Roman times, the right shoulder with the tower above and the adjacent arch are of Scala dynasty era, while the two remaining arches with the large central round belong to the Venetian period.

In last few years, during spring, after work I usually take long walks in the city center and along the Adige: staring at the flow of the river for endless moments relaxes me, and allows me to slow down my thoughts to evaluate more clearly events of the day. I like to immerse myself in the history told by the ancient palaces, the historic porphyry streets and traditional bars, because it seems to go back in time in a surreal atmosphere.

Office work sometimes makes me feel detached by the real world, a continuous flow of thoughts assails me about how to solve my work problems. I deal with analysis of statistical data using business intelligence software tools and I usually work with numbers and computer algorithms, typing in front of a pc. Such a task often produces a sense of alienation from the world around us. For this reason it is necessary by time to time to unplug, in order to allow the mind to reconnect with reality, and let landscapes sights drag your thoughts out of tunnel of rationality. So I let my mind wander aimlessly, trying to passively observe the thoughts and ideas that it produces: precisely during these situations solutions spontaneously appear. We don't have to try hard to find answers, but rather to let our mind guide us to the source of solution.