L. has a deadline, so we get a late start for our trip to Mantova. We’re on a four-car electric train, rolling serenely past the messy agroscapes and one-street towns outside Verona. I have brought along my collected works of Poe, which I bought in Paris. The overwrought, satiric prose of “A Shortness of Breath” has a somnolent effect in the afterglow of our panini [bought at the stazione from a salty Italiano in a cardboard cap]. I’m out like a light for the 40 minute ride.

Arrive in Mantova and it’s on to Palazzo Te which L. and I missed on our last visit. A cool and crumbling old pleasure dome, great freschi of horses, Cupid & Psyche, and a hugely scaled Olympian battle scene with scratched-on graffiti from the 1600′s [Sala dei Giganti].

We are too late to make any more sights, so we wander around Centro a bit. Mr. Spera can’t stop thinking about the next train to Verona, so we eschew a dinner out on the town. Back in Borgo Trento, we buy pizza al taglia, which is pretty great, after all. I knew my father-in-law would love it.