Bambinos in Toyland : Before Christmas every year in the Italian provincial capital of Pordenone, the children of the town put on a bazaar at which they sell their old toys and buy new ones secondhand from their peers.
PORDENONE, Italy — Who knows from Pordenone? Only the lucky few, and on a special Sunday in mid-October, children are the luckiest and happiest of all.
A prosperous, energetic Italian provincial capital of 50,000 located an hour northeast of Venice at the foot of the Alps, Pordenone is hardly a tourist town. With but a handful of hotels within its limits, its attractions not only didn’t rate any stars in the Michelin Green Guide to Italy, it was in fact dropped entirely from that magisterial volume in 1990.
The closest Pordenone has gotten to any kind of written fame is an uncomplimentary mention in Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms.†The great man, who passed through the town as a World War I ambulance driver, was apparently not much impressed. He had a character dismiss it as “not much of a place†and in addition had his hero desert to Switzerland rather than retreat to its friendly confines. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Known 1,000 years ago as Portus Naonis because of its function as a port on the River Noncello, Pordenone does have a reputation for several things, none of which are calculated to inspire wanderlust in potential visitors or even hint at why children have a special reason to rejoice.
For one thing, Pordenone is now a manufacturing center, the home of Zanussi, Italy’s biggest maker of appliances and considered the country’s second largest industrial firm after Fiat. In addition, the chaos in the former Yugoslavia just down the road has made the nearby Aviano NATO base quite a busy place, considerably increasing the American military presence in town. Forthright GIs in full camouflage regalia can be seen striding purposefully through its streets, and hotels post friendly warnings in English about the expense of calling back to the base.
More recently, Pordenone has become known for the event that lured my wife and I to its environs. This is an eight-day international festival devoted to the showing of vintage silent films called “Le Giornate del Cinema Muto,†a matchless occasion with a wonderful combination of conviviality and comprehensiveness.
Though it is possible to arrive in Pordenone without setting foot in a car, my wife and I made other plans. Intent on visiting friends north of Verona, we had rented a car in that city’s airport and so found ourselves driving into Pordenone down a tree-lined boulevard pleasantly reminiscent of streets in the south of France.
Because of the NATO troop crunch, hotel rooms in Pordenone were a little difficult to come by. We settled first in the chilly Albergo Minerva in the center of town, a Spartan place with the cleanest, whitest, most unadorned rooms this side of a monastery.
Hoping for a little more comfort and taking advantage of our car, we soon moved to the Villa Giustinian, less than 10 miles away in the exquisite hamlet of Portobuffole. Built in the 16th Century as a country retreat by a noble (is there any other kind?) Venetian family, the Villa had recently been restored as a luxury hotel, and its calm grounds, quiet service and surprisingly hearty breakfasts were always welcome.
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Once we settled in, we discovered that Pordenone was one of those places travelers dream about, a charming and comfortable town whose absence of tourists makes it possible to live within a culture and not feel like an outsider.
Part of an underappreciated region of Italy known as the Friuli and inhabited by, one guidebook sensibly claims, “the warmest and most hospitable of the Italians,†Pordenone has both elegant shops located on the cobblestoned Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the kind of cozy and welcoming restaurants you hate to leave.
One of the things that made attending “Le Giornate del Cinema Muto†so pleasant, aside from the fascinating programming that went on for close to 10 hours a day, was the event’s regularly scheduled, very civilized 2 1/2-hour lunch and dinner breaks.
After being warned off the only restaurant most guidebooks listed, my wife and I settled into a routine of frequenting one of two establishments for most of our meals. If we were in a hurry, we went to the casual All’Antico Cervo (The Old Stag), a no-reservations, no-credit cards neighborhood place with the freshest and most delicious pizza.
If there was a little more time, and there usually was, we headed to La Gatta Buia, which means “The Black Cat†but with an additional slang meaning of “jailbird.†There we ate beautifully and traded small talk with the exceptionally friendly waiters who all seemed to have kind feelings toward Los Angeles.
The town is so hospitable, in fact, that once a year, on a mid-October weekend, it sponsors a city fair just to give its citizens a chance to mill around and greet each other. There is an “Autoexposizione,†where well-dressed men kick the tires of all the latest model cars, an area set up for tasting of the area’s famous San Daniele prosciutto and, in a normally quiet piazza near the center of town, something special hiding in a printed descriptive brochure under the mundane name of “Bazar 6-14.â€
It is hard to describe the gleeful sensation that stumbling on this bustling event caused in both of us. We rounded a corner and there, stretching out into the distance under a crisp, clear autumnal sky, were literally hundreds of stalls jammed with colorful merchandise. But while it might have looked like just another Italian street fair, this was radically different.
For one thing, there was nothing on any of these tables but toys. Sitting under posters of such modern icons as Jean-Claude Van Damme and the cast of “Beverly Hills 90210,†the merchants kept sharp eyes on piles of dolls, board games, buttons, skates, ice skates and a huge variety of books, from the simplest Disney versions to racy science fiction items.
And quite unusual merchants they were. Not adults, not even close, but young people between the ages of 6 and 14 were sitting behind tables in this ninth annual event established to encourage children to sell their old toys and games and buy new ones secondhand from their peers.
Though the presence of professionally printed badges showed that adults had organized this bazaar, they knew enough to vanish from sight on the big day. So it was an unalloyed treat to see these “aspiring business people†(as a descriptive brochure called them), their tables no doubt neater then their rooms at home ever are, proudly overseeing their own merchandise and intensely haggling with their compatriots.
Egged on to take part by my wife, I approached a little girl who scrutinized me carefully when I pointed at an Italian language novelization of “E.T.†She continued to look dubious as I thumbed through the book, but when I handed her the 2,000 lira asking price (barely more than a dollar), her uncertainty changed into the most magnificent and unexpected of smiles.
There is a lot more to see in Pordenone than the children’s bazaar, including a suitably ancient town hall-cathedral-bell tower combination on the Piazza San Marco and some examples of the painting of 16th-Century master and native son Giovanni Antonio De Sacchis, known to the world as “Il Pordenone.â€
And the town makes a good starting point for explorations of the rest of Friuli, a region that has had three different capitals in its long history. The town of Aquileia is the farthest away, almost as far southeast as Trieste, and we never quite got there, despite the lure of what is supposed to be one of the largest Roman mosaic floors in captivity.
We did get to Udine, an hour due east of Pordenone, with its remarkable Venetian-style town square, and then pushed on to Cividale del Friuli, just 15 minutes farther. Cividale is the home of the celebrated Tempietto Longobardo, a haunting and even magical white stucco relief of a sextet of maiden saints that sits on a high wall in a small temple building by a rushing river and which has lost none of its mystery in the 1,000 years since the Lombards created it.
But wonderful as all these ancient relics are, it is the image of that smiling young girl at the Pordenone children’s bazaar that I believe will stay with me longest. She may have thought she got a great deal when I paid ready money for her discarded book, but my wife and I believe we received the best deal of all.
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GUIDEBOOK
Planning Pordenone
Getting there: From Los Angeles, KLM connects through Amsterdam, Lufthansa through Frankfurt, and Alitalia through Rome, into Venice’s airport, located near Mestre. Round-trip non-refundable air fare, with 21-day advance purchase and minimum and maximum stays, is about $860. A car can be rented there and Pordenone reached in little more than an hour. For those not wanting to drive, the Venice train station is only a short bus or water taxi ride away. Pordenone is a stop--approximately 80 minutes away--on the frequent Venezia-Udine commuter line.
Where to stay: The Villa Giustinian in Portobuffole (Via Giustinian 11, 31019 Portobuffole Treviso; telephone from U.S. 011-39-422-85-02-44, fax 011-39-422-85-02-60) is the most luxurious choice in the area. A single room costs about $105per night; a double about $180. In Pordenone, the two best choices are the Hotel Villa Ottoboni (Piazzetta Ottoboni 2; tel. 011-39-434-20-88-91, fax 011-39-434-20-81-48. Single about $80, double about $100) and the Palace Hotel Moderno (Viale Martelli 1; tel. 011-39-434-28-215, fax 011-39-434-52-03-15. Single about $55, double about $90). A budget alternative is the Albergo Minerva, Piazza XX Settembre 5; tel. 011-39-434-26-066. Single $25-$50, double $40-$75.
Where to eat: The charming La Gatta Buia is located at Piazza XX Settembre, 1/d (tel. locally 0434-29995). All’Antico Cervo serves dreamy pizza at Via Martelli 7; no reservations. Another worthy restaurant is La Vecia Ostria Del Moro, located in a 13th-Century nunnery at V. Castello 2 (tel. 0434-28658).
For more information: “The Cadogan Guide to Venice and the Veneto†($15.95) has information on the Friuli, and the Michelin map of the area is quite good. Also of interest is “Eating in Italy: A Travel Guide to the Gastronomical Pleasures of Northern Italy,†by Faith Heller Willinger (William Morrow, $14.95). Or contact the Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025, tel. (310) 820-0098.
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