Aeroplane flights have always held a special fascination for me. Perhaps it is the roar and shudder of takeoff, followed by the seemingly effortless lift into the swaying shapeless air. Perhaps the bounce through the grey cover that hangs so impenetrably over Britain’s rain-swept landscape, and the final soar into the land where the sun always shines, where the sky is always a brilliant azure blue, and where the clouds drift serenely below the dynamic sweep of the airliner’s wing. Through gaps in the apparently rock-solid puffs of vapour we can see the tiny lights of towns that lie sprawled in pathetic clumps across the wide, bare agricultural plains of Britain. Above, we can see the dark blue of the stratosphere darken and glower into the blackness of space, where the satellites hang in silent, watchful vigil over the masses that lie beneath.

We soar, meanwhile, unaffected by the toils on the ground, past the clouds of apparent rock-solidity, past the wisps of cloud that drift like haze across our field of vision, and the mottled patches that drift like islands of snow, floating indecisively across a sea of blue sky.

As night falls, we see the dark of the night sky as it is joined by an equally inscrutable black of the sinister earth that slips silently away beneath the roar and shudder of the jet’s engines. Blue-grey trails of jet exhaust race back from the powerful barrels hanging under the wings, whilst on the edge the navigation lights flash their repetitive message of communication and comfort. Cut in a brilliant swathe between the dark masses of earth and sky, hangs a vivid orange of sunset, the kind of colour that can only exist in romantic landscape paintings, or at 30,000 feet at nightfall. Here and there clouds try to force their way in front of the omnipotent power of the sun’s farewell. Through most, the sun shines straight through, the vapour forming no more than a slight greying of the impossibly lustrous orange. One or two clouds are more persistent, and hang as black, impenetrable blobs in the way of the sunset, as if, jealous of its beauty, they sought to block out and obscure that with which they cannot compete.

As we move away from Britain’s shores, the bump of turbulence coming up from the shores sending us a reproachful farewell, we move out over the sweeping plains of Northern France. From this flat and featureless landscape, it is down to the Alps, and the jutty peaks of mountains that sweep up to reach us from their dark valleys. Dark and inscrutable at first, the dim shadows sharpen to reveal snow-capped peaks that envy our altitude. At their tops the snow-caps are confident and secure, but the white splits into fingers the further down you look, creating a star of white reaching down to the gloomy valleys that lurk between their glorying heights. As we move further south, and come to the borders of Northern Italy, we see villages and towns nestling in the crags of the mountains: thin, fragile chains of light; like starlets of lava flowing glistening down the silent valleys.

All this glides quietly below, cold and forbidding, as we fly serenely by. A gentle approach into the airport, the sudden crunch and clatter of landing, and we have arrived. A glance out of the window to see that we are in foreign land: cars on the right, flags flying, the architecture different and an air of gentle Latin decay seeping like rich olive oil through the landscape.

A new dawn, breaking new and wonderful with strange smells and sounds. Bells clang their methodical continental chimes to warn us of the hour, whilst the smell of clear air and new bread drifts through the warmth-opened windows. The shouts of passers by, eloquent and urgent, insistent and loquacious, remind us that the clean, crisp light of day does not bring with it a landscape painting, but a living, breathing city: that of Padova, in the Veneto in Northern Italy.

First stop is the Prato della Valle, reputedly the largest square in Italy, probably a good half a mile long. Built on the site of the old Roman amphitheatre, long since destroyed, this huge and beautiful "square" retains its predecessor’s elliptical shape. A ceremonial canal forms a ring in the centre of the square, making an island in the middle of this area. Ringed by hundreds of tall statues, at intervals of ten feet of so around the plaza, the effect is of sentinels guarding the entertainment centre of the Romans, now occupied by sleeping students and footballing children. In the centre is an Italianate fountain, with four paths leading to it that run back through grass to the cobbled bridges, with a statue guarding each corner, leading over the canals.

The Prato della Valle is ringing by colonnades and seemingly medieval buildings, giving a renaissance look to the scene. One could almost be shading from the Roman sun, and feeling and seeing what the ancients saw, so little changed the tenements appear to be. Out of the shutters that line the street, the little portholed windows that peep out from their drab, peeling plaster and shamefully peeping brickwork, one can imagine the merchants of old as they holler down to passers by in the street. Maybe a trader from Venice passed here once, a soldier from Gaul or Britannia passes through on his way to Rome, or as part of an imperial detachment. In reality, of course, there is little left of Ancient Rome: what the marauding barbarians did not destroy in the first five hundred years of the first two millennia, Allied bombing finished off in the last fifty. But the illusion remains, of comfortable, warm decay, of the hustle and bustle of Italianate life: the people on the streets mimicking the pigeons overhead, that flock and flutter down the enfillading streets, like squadrons down a looming fjord.

It seems incredible that wherever you go in these tons, there is always beauty: the cheapest, barest flats are still old and stylised, that to our concreted vision appear to be palatial. So too everyday things like street lamps: in place of our GI efforts, there are swirls of ornate metal, pointed to a stylish top. Unnecessarily ornate, of course, but it all adds to the image of a country and its culture. It is all around, swirling like the metal on the buildings. Of course, much of the beautiful buildings are more modern than they appear, but that is no criticism. The Luftwaffe sent Britain a golden opportunity to rebuild its cities by wiping away the ghastly inner city slums. We threw away this opportunity, and created monsters like Coventry and Plymouth city centres, but the Italians have rebuilt their cities with style and lasting appeal. 

From above the medieval variety of buildings, and the rows of arches, columns and cloisters, we hear the metallic, regular clang of the bells that toll out the hour, cutting trough the Latinate buzz. And so we move on, up the road a little, to the Church of San Antonio, the patron saint of Padova.

The cathedrals in this part of the world are disappointing on the outside: often just a plain brick wall leading up to the promising domes atop. They are huge, invariably, as this staunchly Catholic society is still very influenced by religion, unlike the steady decay that runs through Britain. That is not to say that Italy is a country full of pious, church-going people, for it is not. However, the influence of these towering buildings still makes itself felt in every aspect of Italian life: in attitudes to relationships most obviously for the British visitor, but also in that to alcohol, drugs and the calendar, in a temperate way that has deserted Britain. To step inside one of these towering monsters is to feel a sense of awe: you cannot visit an Italian cathedral and remain unmoved by it. You may disagree with the religion, or indeed feel none at all, but you cannot fail but be impressed by the ranks of candles that light your way as you enter, by the towering arches that sweep up to their gold-embossed climax at the top of the dome. At the foot of each pillar stands a confession box, seemingly to cater for Padova’s obviously sinful population. However, closer inspection reveals that they are all indifferent languages: German, French, and English among them. Who knows who would feel easier about speaking to God in surroundings like this, instead of in our drab, empty churches that stand, devoid of faith or glamour, like guilty things hiding from the light? A walk around the cathedral reveals minutely chiselled statues that stare remorselessly down at the passer, a saint, frozen in time. The paintings that sit below them are a curious mix, alternately dull and bright: remorseful one minute, a medieval warning of doom, with shades of brown and grey, dark green. These dark colours contrast with the pale hues that colour the grief-stricken faces of the sinners depicted, casting their eyes fearfully up at the sun-framed clouds, a smudgy amalgam of ancient piety. We need only turn our eyes to the next framing to see a different view, a vivid cascade of yellow, gilt and gold, with bright yellows, blues and reds, all to illumine the glory of catholic God. Turning through a small doorway, we find ourselves in a small chapel, with one of two precious relics housed therein. An ancient tunic, painstakingly fitted together, and next, a wooden coffin, hardly able to stand together now, let alone hold the venerable saint who now resides in the glorious tomb in the main part of the cathedral. This tomb itself is a marvel, studded with innumerable jewels; it is a bright convulsion of golden, exploding light that dazzles the darker recesses of the basilica.

Outside we go again, from the chill silence of the cathedral to the bustle and emerging warmth of an Italian spring. The crowds of people startle us once again. It is funny how often one can be surprised by the most commonplace things, when in a foreign country. The people have a darker hue, a warm skin colour and dark eyes, not the pallid, sickly look of the English, with their pale, rainswept eyes. The sound surrounds you, a chorus of birdlike, soft, but insistently vehement syllables.

Venice is a dead city: the smell from the stagnant water mirroring the towering decay of the apartments that stand in insecure grandiloquence over them. The racket of drills and saws seems to echo the desperate clamour of the tourist industry that is Venice’s only I ncome. The town is an ossified Disneyland, a tourist park clinging to the last vestiges of its history and forgone beauty. This once great city, the heart of the Venetian Empire, now plays virtually no part in the life of modern Italy. Like the empty vessel that makes the greatest sound, the bustle and crush of the Venice tourist lanes stands only for the vacuum of a city’s cultural and industrial life. The arteries are running: the blood is stale.

For all that, however, there is a quaint attraction to the buildings that attracts the visitor, and it is to this that Venice trusts its luck. The apartments come across as a strange amalgam: the odd stories or balconies jut above the neighbours by degrees, as if they are attempting to outdo their peers by a foot or two. All around you swirls the all-pervading smell of sea and stale water, clinging to clothes and hair. The shops do not share the variety and idiosyncrasies of their buildings however. Stall after stall sells identical kitsch, whilst the few bridges are cluttered with dancing Mickey Mouses, plastic watches and glittering silvered pictures, all sold by hapless individuals who cry out in vain for some passing interest. No-one is able to stop, however, for the tourist stream rushes you onwards, ever onwards towards the sights, before the guides rush their charges back to their hotels, or back to the bus for the next stop.

Off the main tracks, however, one can find a quiet side to a city that tries to live some kind of a normal life. Washing hangs from the back streets, whilst every window sports a flower box. The walls are close together, practically leaning on each other as they peel away their plastered layers to reveal the ranks of crumbling bricks beneath. Haphazard ironwork hangs precariously above the paths, guarding the shuttered windows that peer out onto the street. There is a strange peace here: people bustle to and from their homes, past the Latin air of permanent renovation, whilst the water laps quietly against the bricked canal sides. Tiny bridges appear from the sides of sheer frontages, to end in a colonnaded porch and continue their way winding through the maze of tiny alleys. Steps lead down to private jetties, belying the waterborne traffic’s lack of utility: the pavements are the main, and overused, method of getting from place to place here.

It is perhaps apt that Venice is slowly sinking into the basin from which it arose, as if the sea is trying to cover up the tarnished oil painting that it has spawned. Each week alarms ring out as the water levels get too high, and sewage and stale water laps over the pavements, driving diners from restaurants, businesses from their shops, and if it continues, the tourists from these damp, lifeless shores.

The whole attitude to life in Italy is different. In restaurants, service from waiters that would have any British diner standing red faced and indignant is the norm. Dishes arrive late, or not at all, they come at different times, so that someone may start eating as their friend finishes. Any complaint is met with a baffled stare. It is not that, as we fondly imagine, the Italians are arrogant or lazy incompetents, it is just that they do things in different ways. Again, roofs are left half finished with tiles stacked up for weeks on end. Strange it may seem to us, but it is the norm to them. Similarly, arguing is the done thing. Like the insistent haggler in Monty Python‘s "Life of Brian", debating every little point with vehement hand gestures and raised voices is a normal way of going about things: buses, shops, streets, nowhere is out of place. As we scurry along the pavements muttering obscene threats at passers by, or raise fingers at fellow drivers, so the Italians choose to air their petty grievances and shout at each other. It is not that they are more violent (less so, undoubtedly,) or that they are more excitable, just that they choose to shout at each other rather than get drunk and ram a bottle into someone’s head.

But then, all this is indicative of a different way of looking at things: youth culture is not the alcohol based, hedonistic binge that is the only acceptable way of going about your young life in Britain. Young Italians will go to a bar and just drink Coca-Cola: they talk to each other, rather than get paralytic in what could be anyone's company. Drugs are almost unheard of, and clubs are not the seething pits of intoxicated menace that they are in Britain. Doubtless many Britons would call it boring. So be it.

And so ends a whistle-stop tour of Northern Italy. On the way back to the airport, we cross the wide flood plains that make up the Veneto. In the distance, the faint outlines of mountains loom out of the distance, like giants peeping through a fog, rising suddenly out of the dead flat plains to soar into their crags and rocky peaks. And so they watch our departure, until the airliner, holding us in its cool embrace, taxis down the runway, and throttles up into the burning sky.