<\/p>\nRead Now<\/p>\n
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The opening chapters of Across the River and into the Trees describe Colonel Richard Cantwell duck hunting in the Marano Lagoon. Hemingway arrived in Venice by chance in 1948 with his fourth wife, when his ship bound for Cannes had to stop in Liguria for technical reasons. He had had a 10-year writing block and longed for the Veneto of his war-time youth, 30 years before. This became his sanctuary: hunting parties, drunken evenings at Harry\u2019s Bar, Lucullan lunches in the local osterie\u2014so much alcoholic fun that writing became impossible. Hence his retreat to Torcello, the Byzan\u00adtine island in the northern lagoon we can almost glimpse from the Mini Cooper.<\/p>\n
From the top of the basilica Hemingway could see Fossalta, where he was stationed as an 18-year-old ambu\u00adlance driver in World War I. \u201cI\u2019m a boy of the Lower Piave…\u201d he had written to a friend, \u201cI\u2019m an old fanatic of the Veneto and I will leave my heart here.\u201d He did leave a few pints of blood on this soil as, in 1918, he was wounded on the Piave River, which we now cross, not too far from the famous Isonzo battles that claimed 300,000 Italian lives and 30,000 ethnic Slovenian, who had fought against them on a 60-mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.<\/p>\n
These are the rivers, I Fiumi, described by poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. These are the massacres immortalised by Curzio Malaparte in La rivolta dei santi maledetti, a scathing indictment of dread\u00adful Italian mistakes, censored by the state until 1980. These are the natural frontiers you cross on an autostrada without noticing, unless you know what to look for. This journey will be about literature, history, borders and battles, but also some\u00adthing more profound, hiding deep inside a river. In Hemingway\u2019s case, and in his time, it was always about killing. In our case, and in our times (for now, at least), it is about releasing.<\/p>\n
Palmanova appears on the right: the star-shaped fort the Venetian Republic built in the late Renaissance, still perfect from the air, invisible from the road. We leave Trieste to the south, heading towards the border town of Gorizia, or Nova Gorica in Slovenian. These lands, now in the region of Friuli, have been painted in vibrant colours in the pages of Jan Morris and Claudio Magris. When he first arrived here in 1945, James Morris was a young, male British soldier. She returned as an elderly woman decades later, armed with a gifted pen labelling Trieste as \u201cthe capital of nowhere,\u201d a bor\u00adder city frequented by James Joyce and Italo Svevo, a port whose very name con\u00adnotes \u201cthe visceral, the surreal, the lonely, the hypochondriac, the self-centred and the affectionate\u201d. I remember crossing this frontier as a young man with my girlfriend in a battered Fiat, into a Yu\u00adgoslavia that smelled of spaghetti with marmalade and communist suspicion.<\/p>\n
Trieste has always been a city between worlds, linking Vienna to the Mediterranean port of the Habsburg Empire, a gateway to our journey, the home of Claudio Magris, philosopher of the same threshold and Meistersinger of Mitteleuropa. His emphasis of the non-national legacy of these lands is an in\u00adspiration to cosmopolitans like Gianni and me\u2014a strategy of resistance against authoritarian regimes, the allure of easy nostalgia, the surrender to the past. Magris\u2019 book Microcosms describing the limestone plateau of the Carso, between Trieste and Gorizia, reads like a meditation on what it means to live on the edge of different worlds.<\/p>\n
After the Great War of 1915-18, Gorizia fell to the Kingdom of Italy, but in 1947, after World War II, the city was divided. The east went to communist Yugoslavia, the Isonzo River which used to be a unifying element, became a hard border until Slo\u00advenia joined the Schengen Agreement in 2007. The city even has its own version of the Berlin Wall, the \u2018Wall of Gorizia\u2019. On one side, Nova Gorica was rebuilt by a Slovenian student of Le Corbusier and showcased Tito\u2019s socialism. On the western side, the contrast with baroque Gorizia couldn\u2019t be greater.<\/p>\n
The dark subtext that cannot be avoided is that in May 1945, more than a thousand people (half of them Fascist military police, more than 100 Slove\u00adnians accused of collaboration and more than 300 Italian civilians) were arrested and executed by Yugoslav Partisans in what is known as the foibe, karst sinkholes of this limestone landscape where the corpses were thrown, a topic instrumentalised by the right in Italy and never honestly reckoned with by the left\u2014a wound still bleeding in today\u2019s politics. Dead bodies rest under the picturesque landscape, the disquieting buried under the normalised. Genocide, again, asphalted by real estate plans.<\/p>\n
The Trottas hailed from here. Joseph Roth\u2019s great novel The Radetzky March\u2014 the elegy that defined how an entire ci\u00advilisation understood its own collapse\u2014 traces three generations of a family of soldiers and bureaucrats of Slovenian origin, whose ancestor settled in Sipolje, not far south of the road we are now driv\u00ading. They were the Habsburg Empire\u2019s most loyal servants: foot-soldiers of a sys\u00adtem that never quite considered them its heart. When the empire fell, their land was divided between Mussolini\u2019s Italy and Tito\u2019s Yugoslavia, and they were forgotten by history, visible now only through the emerald water of the rivers ahead, and the marble trout waiting in the Sava River currents.<\/p>\n
![\"Mount](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAD\/ACwAAAAAAQABAAACADs=\" "\\"Mount")
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Mount Nero on the Karst plateau where the Second Battle of the Isonzo in 1915 saw fierce handto-hand combat between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops (Photo: Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roth himself was a man formed en\u00adtirely by margins. Born in 1894 in Brody, a Jewish town in Galicia near the Russian border, he wrote in German, converted to Catholicism more as political defiance than spiritual conviction, and became the star feature writer. He defined his own m\u00e9tier with characteristic preci\u00adsion: \u201cI paint the portrait of the age. I\u2019m not a reporter, I\u2019m a journalist; I\u2019m not an editorial writer, I\u2019m a poet.\u201d A manifesto Gianni and I happily embrace as the Mini Cooper glides into Slovenia.<\/p>\n
The day Hitler came to power in January 1933, Roth boarded a train from Berlin to Paris and never returned. He wrote to Stefan Zweig: \u201cHell reigns. Do not fool yourself.\u201d He spent his final years in Paris hotels, writing at caf\u00e9 ta\u00adbles, drinking himself to death. He died in 1939. His gravestone reads: \u00c9crivain autrichien\u2014mort \u00e0 Paris en exil. The story of the Trottas ends, in the sequel The Emperor\u2019s Tomb, fittingly, with the last Trotta standing before the locked door of the Habsburg crypt in Vienna, asking: \u201cWhere shall I go now, I, a Trotta?\u201d It is a question this landscape has been asking, in different languages, ever since.<\/p>\n
None of this is visible in today\u2019s Bled, Slovenia\u2019s premier Alpine resort desti\u00adnation, one of the most enchantingly located towns in all of Europe, tucked around the eastern end of the lake and overlooked to the north, east, and west by majestically snow-topped Julian Alps. Here I feel compelled to sing the praises of over-tourism, forcing our small car into a tedious queue, just to reach the Fauna Fly fishing shop before heading to our hotel in nearby Ribno.<\/p>\n
Yes, the stench from exhaust pipes of fuel over-priced by the Iran war is un\u00adpleasant. Yes, we are boiling in the heat, engines on, inching down to the four miles road embracing the lake, a hun\u00addred feet deep, saturated by cobalt blue. But in the middle, the first unmissable Instagram shot: the rocky islet entirely occupied by a graceful, tall-steepled 17th-century church, to the right, and, up high on a rock, the walled fort is straight out of a Disney fable. Many faces of many na\u00adtions, all in ice-cream licking harmony, pushing strollers, riding bicycles, smil\u00ading in the sunny afternoon. Globalisa\u00adtion, for all its shortcomings, has created peaceful cohabitation, fuelled by book\u00ading apps and low-budget airlines.<\/p>\n
HERE WE ALL are, in this land formerly riddled by horror war stories: Korean tourists off a bus from Venice, Americans with their loud voices, eternally stiff Brits, plenty of Austrians and Germans who feel quite at home, as do the Serbians, Croatians, Hungarians, and the unavoidable Italians like us, heading hungrily to \u2018Pizzeria Al Fresco\u2019 to discover that the delicious pie is baked by none other than a very talented pizzaiolo originally from the Delhi area, with whom I discuss similarities between naan and the Margherita dough.<\/p>\n
Once we reach the hotel, as I\u2019m resting from the long drive in my room, I hear loud, nervous knocking at the door. The hotel is surrounded by a balmy spruce pine forest, gently filtering the river whose roar we can still perceive if I open the windows. It\u2019s Gianni, from next door. His widened eyes look like he has just stuck his fingers in an electric socket, as he says: \u201cPlease slap me!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t believe it\u2026 I forgot my gear in Venice! Please slap me hard on the face, I deserve it,\u201d he begs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not in favour of violence,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a jerk, I\u2019m so stupid,\u201d he moans.<\/p>\n
Being 20 years his senior, I approach mistakes with more wisdom: \u201cGianni, you did a stupid thing, doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re stupid\u2026\u201d Too many years in America have filled me with sugary positive reinforcement. \u201cThe solution is simple, let\u2019s go back to Matej\u2019s at the Fauna Fly fishing shop by the lake to rent you a fishing suit.\u201d We are no testosterone-fuelled Hemingways, we are just awkward, self-aware and self-ironic Europeans dressed for the part.<\/p>\n
In the shop, we run into a muscular 19-year-old Serbian boy who has ridden his bicycle 500km to come fly fishing here. His unruly mane of brown curls under a baseball hat seems too tight for his head. He is cordial and speaks perfect Netflix American. \u201cMy friends were heading for a school trip to Venice that cost 500 euros. Too expensive for me. So I decided to plan my own adventure\u2026 I might ride down to Venice afterwards anyway,\u201d he says as he walks out of the shop with a new collection of artificial flies for his fishing line.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now time to face the unavoid\u00adable. We are here to fish. All throughout our journey I have been humming the banjo tune from Deliverance\u2014the duet between the city tourist and the local on his porch, bliss soon turning to mayhem\u2014just to wind Gianni up. Yet, soon enough, we also take a wrong turn and are reminded quickly of the past. \u201cMilitary Area, entrance forbid\u00adden\u201d the sign blocking the way right after we cross a small bridge warns us. \u201cMovement limited, shooting range.\u201d Now we are properly terrified. This is not the adrenaline we were aiming for. We feel a bit like a trout hooked on the line. The fishermen getting fished.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuick, quick, let\u2019s do a 3-point turn around!\u201d I urge Gianni who hurriedly swings the wheel around, as I look out, hoping we won\u2019t get into the crosshairs of sharp shooters. As I\u2019ve said, we are writers, so most of it is happening in our imagina\u00adtion. The Mini Cooper escapes the bridge unscathed, only now noticing the \u2018DO NOT ENTER\u2019 sign we had missed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s my second attempt at this practice that I master clumsily. The idea is mime\u00adsis, the fisherman trying to blend with the context of the river, wearing green, approaching the flowing waters like a cat, slow steps. Fish shouldn\u2019t notice we place ourselves in the middle of the Sava River.<\/p>\n
I attempt to master swinging the rod and line in the air, remembering Brad Pitt, eternally studying the current, in A River Runs through It directed in 1992 by Robert Redford, based on Norman Maclean\u2019s novella. The only thing resembling it are Gianni\u2019s technical suit, his peaked hat, the bright, elegant dress shirt with the upturned collar, a true Venetian gentleman, as he circles the air with nobility in his wrist swing, that fake fly buzzing in the air, closer and closer to the bubbles that indicate trout are abounding, down there in the shade.<\/p>\n
Thomas McGuane, who wrote better about fly fishing than anyone before or since, called it \u201cthe longest silence\u201d\u2014 those unproductive stretches that are, paradoxically, the whole point. Progress, he argued, is always towards the kinds of fishing that are never productive \u201cin the sense of the blood riots of the hunting-and-fishing periodicals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The whole point is patience. Enjoy\u00ading the quiet and the surroundings. Feeling the current push into the one-piece water-proof suit that begins with the boots and wraps suspenders around the shoulders. Swing that rod, make that fake fly dance in the air, back and forth, land it far away, retrieve the line as it floats on the surface, carried by the cur\u00adrent, hope that a marble trout will fall for it and bite into the circled, barbless hook designed to leave no wound. We have paid a steep fee for a Catch & Release permit. No guarantee of a single catch.<\/p>\n
Between spots, we run into the Serbian boy again. He asks: \u201cHow many have you caught?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone, yet,\u201d we admit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve caught five already this morn\u00ading\u2026\u201d He pauses, looks at Gianni: \u201cI thought you were an expert fisher\u00adman\u2026\u201d He\u2019s gone full Brad Pitt on us. Then, to make things worse, he takes pity: \u201cIf you want you can join me at my spot, over there, beyond that bend.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Gianni\u2019s ego is now too bruised, thanks but no thanks, we\u2019ll seek our spots, we will get our catch. So we find our pebbly beach. Gear out, hook on, throw that line. Again and again. Wait. A van stops on the bridge above us. Two Slovenians walk out with a bucket. They pour a few kilos of live marble trout into the river, as the locals are revitalising growth this way too. Gianni is perturbed, it\u2019s too noisy, it will scare our catch.<\/p>\n
So we venture far from people, through the shrubs and spruce, into the water again, reaching a rocky island in the river. After much pleasant waiting in the breeze and sun, Gianni screams. \u201cGot it!\u201d He pulls, then hands me the arched rod so I can feel the thrill, since I\u2019m far from catching anything today, or ever. So I coil up the yellow line until the marble trout is puffing and pant\u00ading in Gianni\u2019s fancy wooden net he bought from Matej\u2019s shop, to hide the shame of his forgetfulness.<\/p>\n
I feel a pinch in the heart for this crea\u00adture. Creepy, dark, sinewy leeches cling to its gills and tail-normal in this cold season, when trout hide on the bottom, easy prey to parasites. I feel I should intervene by ripping out these opportunistic crea\u00adtures, but it\u2019s better not to touch it\u2014look at it, thank it for the buzz, unhook the undamaged mouth, let it go. There will be no Hemingwayan killing today, only con\u00adtemporary releasing of other forms of life with whom we played, not too traumati\u00adcally. I vicariously take in Gianni\u2019s joy, his pleasure in sharing this pastime for old men. This is also what friendship is about.<\/p>\n
Mission accomplished: not shot at, surrounded by natural beauty, absorb\u00ading the peaceful cohabitation of people who used to cut each other\u2019s throats with bayonets once munitions ran out. We have enjoyed hours on a river that used to be darkened with blood, now running cobalt blue to the Danube and then into the distant Black Sea, where another war is claiming lives.<\/p>\n
This journey from Hemingway\u2019s lagoons, through the land of Magris and Morris, into Roth\u2019s Trotta mountains ends with a ritual that refused to kill anything. The 12 battles on the Isonzo, Gorizia cut in two, bloody foibe in the karst, a Serbian boy on his bike, a pizza chef from Delhi\u2026 we are all people on the edges of other former empires, converging on an emerald river to practise patience.<\/p>\n
We have lived a moment in the middle of a river, then disappearing into the stream. An instant we will remember. Or at least that\u2019s what we tell each other, as we smoke a cigar on the dark veranda of the hotel, in silence, that evening, swigging a sip of Cognac from a very fisherman-like pocket flask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The car was bought shortly after the Twin Towers collapsed. And it smells like it. I fit my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,35655,35644,35646,35653,35650,35652,23767,35648,35647,35654,35657,35651,35656,35649,35645],"class_list":{"0":"post-65381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-alps","8":"tag-alps","9":"tag-catch-release","10":"tag-emerald-river","11":"tag-fly-fishing","12":"tag-gorizia-border","13":"tag-hemingway-veneto","14":"tag-isonzo-front","15":"tag-julian-alps","16":"tag-lake-bled","17":"tag-marble-trout","18":"tag-mitteleuropa","19":"tag-patience-practice","20":"tag-sava-river","21":"tag-slovenia-travel","22":"tag-trieste-travel","23":"tag-venetian-lagoons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116573948359295249","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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