110
TRAU
Among the remaining churches of Traii, the most noteworthy is the ruined and desecrated temple of S. John the Baptist, on the quay near Tironi’s restaurant. It once belonged to a Benedictine abbey, and its square-ended chancel recalls that other Benedictine church of S. Ambrogio at Nona. It is built of fine, sharply cut and squared stone, has an outside staircase and a remarkably graceful bell-cote for three bells. Traii once boasted twenty-one churches, but most of these are now in ruins or are clean gone. The old walls of the city have also gone, giving place to a broad promenade which encircles the town from the canal fossa on the land side—the artificial fosse cut to convert Trail into an island—right round by the massive keep of Castel Camerlengo, built by the Venetians in 1424, soon after their final occupation of Traii. It is a noble pile, most striking from the sea, worthy of the best period of Venetian military architecture. Opposite, as we continue our walk, lies the suburb of Traii that has spread across to Bua—charming villas with rich, subtropical vegetation in their gardens. On the quay by the land-exit from the city is Tironi’s trattoria, where the fish is particularly good, and whence, if we have come to Traii by steamer, we can take a carriage and drive back through the