Day 2: Rachel arrives / Live Chess Match in Marostica (September 10)

I (very) briefly considered driving to Venice to pick Rachel up from her bus stop but figured it was just as easy for her to hop on the train and come up to Treviso. That turned out to be a good thing because Julia and I slept in until after 9 and by the time Rachel was arriving it was nearly time for us to check out of our hotel. We lugged our bags back through town and met Rachel where we had parked the car. We walked from there directly to our apartment and this time we stumbled upon the man we had seen the day before who looked like Geurino parking his car in the garage under our apartment building — it was him looking just as he had 10 years earlier! It took him a moment (the girls have changed a lot in 10 years) but he recognized my name and it all came back to him.

Yes, it was as awkward as it looks

Because we were there, Rachel wanted to try the 5 o’clock pizza — not the right time of day, but it turns out it was better a little fresher earlier in the day! We then walked through the market towards the main square and had a drink in the place where I remember getting fresh orange juice on one of our first days in town.

Then it was time for the meal we had been waiting for — lunch at Da Pino — and it did not disappoint. Somehow that pizza is just perfect. We walked back to Dassie for some gelato (trying three flavors, I think mine won?) and took pictures at the gate to the city before walking back to the car to head toward the reason for our visit.

We found a hotel in Bassano del Grappa which is about 10 minutes from Marostica but rather than spend much time there after checking in, we decided to head to Marostica a couple of hours early to walk around. We arrived under beautiful blue skies and found the special cherry candies Rachel remembered and saw the performers rehearsing the flag-throwing portion of the shows.

We sat at a sidewalk cafe and ordered a cheese plate (not enough for dinner) but it was fun to sit and watch the people walk by, many of whom were clearly performers based on what they were wearing; it seemed the entire town was in the performance in some way.

The chess match tells the story from the 1400s in which two men were vying for the hand of the princess and the king decided that he would give his eldest daughter to the winner of a chess match--and, that the loser would get to marry the younger sister!

The performance itself didn’t start until 9 pm and we needed more food. We found a place for a quick slice of pizza and headed to our seats. By the time we had finalized our plans to come to Italy, the show was nearly sold out so we were only able to find three single seats, luckily in the same section. We also had been prepared for it to rain during our trip, but on that particular day, there was no actual rain in the forecast. But, not too far into the show, just as the king and his entire processional had made their grand entrance into the courtyard, it started to rain.

The king and processional exited with similar fanfare as they had entered, and moments later, they entered again with the entire processional. Not speaking Italian, we found it hard to follow exactly what was happening, but when a few minutes later it started raining much harder the processional proceeded out again and an announcement came over the loudspeaker telling people to exit.

We crouched under the bleachers to escape the rain and found out from a woman who speaks three languages that they couldn’t have the costumes in the rain because the velvet was too fragile. I was surprised someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language knew the word velvet; she was surprised that someone would travel to Marostica from America for this production. Her husband suggested our next trip should be to see the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany which happens only every 10 years…I’m definitely game.

Within about half an hour we were able to return to our (very wet) seats and the royal family processed out again. The chess match was a short part of the overall production but we were particularly impressed with the young kids (maybe 5 or 6 years old) whose job it was to hold the queen’s train up while she moved from square to square. They were out there a LONG time overall and never lost focus. It was a late night and we didn’t understand much of it but it was delightful to be there. In rereading the old blog, I realized that it was Rachel who had made the declaration that returning to Marostica for the human chess game was on her bucket list — I am so happy Julia and I could return with her for this full circle moment.