Milan
I wear a plastic digital watch twenty-four hours a day, and I check it frequently even during the night because I wake up often and want to know the time. I usually get a new one every six months or so due to paint build-up from work, and I experiment with different styles. I’m not painting for a year, so I figured my current watch would last for the entire trip. I was woefully disappointed when it died on me two days ago. Since we were heading into downtown Milan, I figured there would be numerous stores in which I could purchase a new watch, and all would be right with the world. My only problem was that I don’t like to spend more than $10.00 on a watch. The whole time we were in the shopping district, I never saw one for less than $5,000.00.
We started our first full day in Milan with a quick breakfast so we could venture out and tackle another public transportation system. We quickly located our neighborhood bus stop and boarded a bus using the tickets we bought at the tobacco shop yesterday. Everyone smokes in Europe: men, women, teens, children, dogs—creatures from all walks of life are constantly puffing away, and they enjoy the act immensely. I guess that’s why they sell bus tickets in the tobacco shop; everyone goes there at least once a day. They also sell beer, candy, and lottery tickets, in order to catch everyone else. We rode the bus to one of the major metro stops and headed underground to catch the M1 train pointed toward downtown Milan, feeling confident about our navigation so far. We ascended from the metro to the main square and beheld the Milan Cathedral for the first time. This magnificent structure is spellbinding. We couldn’t take our eyes off the multi-colored blocks of stone stacked in perfect order and the spires soaring from every vertical point. The cathedral anchors the main square of historic Milan, and crowds of people were there early in the day smiling and enjoying the symmetrical beauty of this ancient city. Deena found a self-guided walking tour online yesterday, and we pulled it up on the phone to start our trek.
Since we were in Milan for only one day, we were more interested in the look and feel of the central area than digging through the history; so we loosely followed the online tour as we strolled deeper into posh areas of the city. Milan is considered one of the fashion capitals of the world, and all of the major designer names were represented in the district with flagship stores on every corner. The shops had well-groomed sentries at the doors and window displays with combinations of high falutin’ clothing that had no appeal for the members of my crew. I guess our roots in the southern United States produces unrefinement and blindness to the aspiration of a look similar to a Hunger Games character. Many of the shops had price lists to accompany the displays, and we marveled at the high cost of looking weird…um, fashionable. One of the highest priced items we saw was a silvery chinchilla coat for 30,000 euro, and while it was pretty, I couldn’t help but think of those poor shivering rodents donating their fur for the sake of fashion.
Hunger pangs led us to a small bistro off the main drag, and the kind proprietor helped us make sandwich selections with a combination of broken English and animated Italian. We found seats at a small table outside and watched the pretty people walk by while we waited for our sandwiches to be heated. From what I observed all morning, the men in Milan are more concerned with their look than the women, and like the fashion trend in other major cities, they prefer medium blue suits with colorful shirt and tie combinations, anchored with shoes the color of an eight-euro cappuccino. Our sandwiches arrived accompanied by cokes with lemon slices. We took our time savoring every bite of the warm, crunchy baguettes stuffed with thick layers of prosciutto and creamy cheese. The look of the ornate buildings and courtyards surrounding us made our meal all the more sumptuous, and we enjoyed a long luncheon on a warm day in Milan.
Our self-guided tour took us around all the major squares in downtown Milan, and after a few hours, we were ready to wind down and start heading back to our rustic neighborhood. There was an H&M clothing store near our metro station which the kids wanted to visit before heading back, so we agreed to a thirty-minute field trip. This store caters to the young hip crowd and I noted that while all of the high cost, high fashion stores we had seen earlier in the day were empty, H&M was packed with people buying discount clothing, hmmmm. We wondered how those other expensive stores stay in business without customers, but I guess if they sell one chinchilla coat a week, they can cover the rent for another month. We took the metro back to our bus stop, and before we left the underground, Deena noticed a small souvenir shop with watches on display in the window. The shopkeeper gave me a curious smile as he observed his most grateful customer ever strut out of the store with an eight-euro... plastic...digital...watch.
We cooked a simple supper at our apartment that night and started gathering our clothes for packing as our brief stay in Milan was winding down. Next morning we slept a little later since we had booked a mid-morning bus to Venice, and we had time for coffee and eggs before hoisting our packs and starting another transportation odyssey. After traveling by another bus-and-metro combination for an hour, we arrived at the central bus station in Milan where we boarded a Flixbus for a three-hour journey to Venice. The bus was uncrowded, and the seats were large and comfortable, so I prepared myself for a major nap to make up for a couple of restless nights. My anticipated slumber never happened due to the state of wonder produced by looking out the bus window as we motored through what looked to be a large, lush oil painting. I don’t know much about the history of the area, but I didn’t care as we passed long leafy vineyards at the base of terraced hills marked sporadically with tall pencil-point cypress trees. Sprawling pale-yellow villas with terracotta roofs sat among the vineyards, looking like a bin of Italian landscapes at Old Time Pottery come to life.
The bus ride was comfortable, and halfway through, the driver stopped at a nice rest area with a well-stocked convenience store. We pulled into the Venice bus station at 2:00 with nary a canal or gondola in sight—those things are across the lagoon a few kilometers away, our destination for the next day. Our task at hand was to journey to the countryside of Zelarino on the outskirts of Venice and find our lodging by means of another public transportation mission. We were booked to stay on an organic farm which came highly rated, but many guests said that getting there could be confusing. Boy, they weren’t kidding. It’s a good thing we arrived in Venice early because we needed two hours to find trams and buses with confusing signs and no clue about the direction we needed to travel. The farm gave basic instructions that provided just enough information to piece together a journey using inference and common sense, but after getting off the bus at the wrong stop an hour and a half into our journey, we started getting frustrated and testy. Unlike other buses we’ve ridden in Europe, the ones in the Venice area don’t list the stop names, and unless one is a seasoned local or a wizard, there is no way to tell where to get off. After we finally hiked a couple of kilometers and found the meeting point, our host picked us up in a large van and couldn’t seem to understand why we had trouble. He was otherwise very friendly—the only thing that kept me from wringing his Italian neck.
For three days, we’re staying just outside Venice at the Rainbow Eco Garden which is a family-owned organic farm, vineyard, and campground. They also offer small rooms for travelers who don’t have camping gear. This place got fabulous reviews on AirBnB, and the price was right, so we figured for three days, we couldn’t lose. As we turned off the main highway, several barking dogs chased us down the gravel road when we approached the central building of the compound. There was an old bike barn on the edge of the parking lot, and a small garden filled with grape vines and olive trees was beside the reception area. Our host, Maurizio, ushered us inside, and we were joined by his father, a portly gentleman who created a wine-scented breeze as he sat heavily on the bench in front of the registration ledger. It seemed there was a mix-up, and we were booked for a tent site instead of a room, but Deena held her ground, and we ended up with a two-bedroom apartment right off the main compound. It cost us a few more euro, but the place is spacious and comfortable, and we have plenty of room to spread out and relax. After we stowed our gear, we inspected the long row of rusty cycles at the bike barn and chose four that seemed the most road-worthy. We biked a couple kilometers into the green countryside to a small market where we selected groceries for the next day or two, including links of sausage freshly made by the proprietor’s friendly wife, and she did her best to instruct us on how to cook it in broken English and enthusiastic Italian. We cooked a flavorful meal for supper and spent the rest of the evening resting and reading after a full day of travel, satisfied with our efforts to conquer the many challenges of the Italian transportation system.
Rainbow Eco Garden
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