...just out of the new road, entering the port. Inspection, the Financial Guard is always attentive to false steps. But then, just few meters and you're out again. Finally in Venice, lost in a daedalian maze of houses surrounded by the harbour wall, with the impression of entering from the back door. Life here is still at half speed. Nothing around except old grocery stores selling everything from cheese to diapers and a couple of inns. Tourists do not come here except, on time to time, some German couples who have lost their way. Twenty years ago it was the same, the inns still populated of rough people drinking wine and swearing the god every second. Some old ragged fellows living with some minimum social wage and wearing the same dress for the whole season are sitting on a bench looking at the people passing in front of them. One is 'The Major', when he was young he studied philosophy. He is able to answer any question on every subject while staring at the female students coming after a lesson. I do not know who had the brilliant idea of putting the Faculty of Chemistry here, in the abandoned cotton-mill...