A year after I moved to Motovun, on a rainy day just like today, I fell in the archways linking the upper and the lower square (“Cobblestones,” September 16, 2004). When I came home, I ruminated about the two types of stone used to pave the hilltown’s streets and squares. The old ones are dark-grey and mat, whereas the new ones are light-beige and glossy. The new ones were used only the last fifty years to repair the busiest spots. And the job was obviously entrusted to an idiot. The new stone is very slippery. This is why I fell, of course. But today I noticed that all the slippery cobblestones in the archway are covered with strips of adhesive tape that feels like sandpaper on the outside. I am not in touch with anyone in the municipal office, but I assume that many people fell in recent years. Quite a number of tourists must have been among them. Some of them maybe even sued the municipality for the slippery pavement. A quick and ugly solution was thus found, but I wonder what will be done to restore the streets and squares of Motovun to their original condition. The dark-grey stone used under the Venetian rule could not have disappeared from the face of the earth in the meanwhile. One would assume that issues like this one would be picked up by the people concerned with cultural heritage in Istria, but that would be too much to assume. It is they who let the slippery stones be installed in the first place.

Addendum (September 14, 2012)

As I almost always do when Motovun’s cultural heritage is in question, I sent this piece to Francesco Bandarin, the director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center in Geneva. I always count with one thing only—his origin. Like me, he hails from Venice, albeit much more recently. If I am not mistaken, he was born there, too. Anyhow, both of our family names go way back. And it is the Venetian cultural heritage we are concerned about in this case. Germans have left not a trace worth mentioning in Motovun. Neither have Slavs. Systematic destruction exempted in the latter case, it goes without saying. Returning to Bandarin, he is my only hope in Motovun.