RANDOM ECHOES - ITALY 14/10/05

Autumn chill - still the city maintains warmth of place and unexpected serenity – even that despite the thrash metal fan on the overcrowded train to Verbania (one hour North of Milan – our destination) who decides to let us suffer with him the throes of adolescent angst and shite taste in music and who looks himself like he is not enjoying it but using it solely for statement.

Milan Central Station – awesome edifice (perhaps built by The Big ‘M’ – not sure, it’s grandiose enough for it to have been) – mythical winged chariots adorn the front, the interior mapped with astrological signs carved over entrances in yellow stone.

Faces of the Milanese are very different to those in Rome or Umbria for example, a wider genetic mix – German, Swiss, French. There are the dark, almost stereotypical Italians but the blonde haired or fairer skinned northerners alongside confound expectation and place. And of course the cooler more fashion conscious Milanese display their peacock character far more than anywhere else I’ve been in Italy – this does mean however they are noticeably less warm-hearted and open, without that sense of natural sensitivity to other’s needs that the more rural Italians have even within an hour’s radius (Piedmont, Lombardy) of Milan itself. The way they greet or assist you is far more aloof, hurried, and judgmental. But the Milanese have always considered themselves to be ‘apart’ from the rest of Italy and this goes right back to the later medieval and renaissance rule of the Dukes of Sforza who campaigned bloodily for their own state.

Pol learning Italian from an out of date tourist phrasebook, seemingly quite useless: “Be careful! I can’t slow down!” – “Would you like to make up a foursome?” – “This is a lovely straw hat.” Smacks a little of some ex-pat novel about life under the Tuscan sun, you know the kind of thing: Aga Saga’s in Italy; hateful, tepid literature.

Stresa – the jewel of the lake, where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt met one day to sign treaties and carve the future world up.