Bologna: The Portico Walk

Luckily for our waistlines and our general health, Bologna had an excellent antidote to all that eating: one of the world's longest portico walks, leading from the Porta Saragozza on the edge of the city centre, to the Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca on  a hill overlooking the town. There are 666 porticoes covering a distance of almost 4km and many steps climbing up to the 300m high summit. While the porticoes are designed to protect pilgrims from the weather, it's actually better to do the walk on a clear day because the views from the top, looking over the city and out to the mountains behind it, are beautiful. The church is also gorgeously decorated and definitely worth a visit, although the famous icon of the Madonna is a little disappointing, being practically swamped by its chunky gold frame. And as a further reward, the walk down is a lot less strenuous than the hike up!

Looking down the steepest bit of the walk.

View from the Sanctuary

You have to continue down the other side a little to get this perfect view of the sanctuary itself.

Bologna la Grassa

Bologna's third nickname, "La Grassa", proved during our visit to be at least as well justified as the other two. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, every meal was delicious, as were the many snacks we had in between.

On our first night, we went out for drinks before dinner and discovered that Bologna has adopted the Milanese concept of aperitivo with gusto. Our friends claimed that it's still more difficult to have an entire meal for the price of your drink than in Milan, but we were nevertheless plied with delicious snacks which were extremely hard to resist, especially as our hosts were friendly with the bar owners, meaning that it would have been rude to refuse.

Which would have been fine, except that we had reservations for later on for a pizzeria in Via San Vitale (which I think was probably Spacca Napoli but I'm so behind in writing up this blog that I can't guarantee the recommendation.). Despite the reservation, we still had to queue for our table, but after about fifteen minutes we squeezed our way past the waiting crowds, inhaling the delicious aromas of tomato sauce and melting cheese, to the small room at the back where tables, chairs and customers jostle for space to consume the restaurant's ENORMOUS pizzas. The sensible thing to do would have been to follow the example of the group of girls behind us, who ordered one pizza between about four of them, but we weren't sensible and ended up with our own individual pizzas that were so big there was barely room for the glasses on the table. Luckily the restaurant was happy enough to wrap up the leftovers for us to take home, but I learned a useful lesson: if you plan to do this, don't order the pizza with fresh rocket and parmesan, because it's probably the only one that won't taste great when you take it out of the fridge the next day.

On our second day, we worked up an appetite by climbing the Torre d'Asinelli, before going for lunch at Bracce, another Neapolitan restaurant also in Via San Vitale. Understanding Frenchman had the tagliatelle al ragu', which is the authentic version of the dish known to the anglophone world as spaghetti bolognese. I had some generously filled pasta which was supposed to have ricotta inside, but a pumpkin one also got in by accident and it was delicious too, so I would highly recommend either one. We were too full for dessert, but they did bring us limoncello to finish off with, and even my friend who doesn't really like limoncello drank it and said that it wasn't bad. Bracce was also the restaurant with the waiter who really should have been an actor, who after discovering where Understanding Frenchman was from, spent the whole time we were there doing a very funny impression of a Parisian waiter, while simultaneously talking to my friend in German because he had decided she had a German accent when she spoke Italian.

The final gastronomical delight that we encountered in Bologna was breakfast. In the culinary capital of Italy, even the brioche are more solid, more cake-y and more buttery than elsewhere, and even more delicious. It was probably just as well that we left after three days, although not without taking plenty of Parma ham and parmesan cheese with us!

Bologna La Dotta

Bologna's second nickname, "La Dotta" refers to her university, whose origins date back to as early as 1088 and which is considered to be the oldest in Europe. We did go and wander round the university quarter, and I know there are some very interesting museums there (waxworks of medical oddities and deformities, anyone?) but because we didn't acutally spend a lot of time in the area, I'm going to cheat a little and steal the title "The Learned" for the most educational experience I had while we were there: a visit to the seven churches, or Sette Chiese di Santo Stefano.

The Sette Chiese are, as the name says, a complex of seven churches, supposedly built on the inspiration of San Petronio, copying the idea of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, on a site that dates back to Roman times. One of the churches was big enough to be holding Sunday mass when we were vitising, but others were just little chapels.My favourite was the one built up from the ruins of the old temple of Iside, where you could still see the Roman pillars standing next to the Vth century columns of the church.

I also liked the intricate patterns in the brickwork here:

And even I could tell that the nativity scene in the Chiesa Santa Croce was very, very old. Carved out of wood, with statues the size of a small real-life person, it is in fact the oldest Christian crib sculpture in the entire world, dating back to the thirteenth century.

I was impressed.

Bologna la Rossa*

If I was mildly frustrated by the experience of being a tiny dot in the hoardes of tourists in Florence, Bologna was the perfect antidote. Not only were we visiting friends, and therefore slightly less "touristy" ourselves, but even when we did go touring around the city's many sights, we didn't have to queue for anything. Not once.

The most obvious buildings to visit are the Two Towers, which were built in the 1100s and are the symbol of Bologna. There used to be many, many more, but they either they were demolished or they (gulp!) collapsed. Both of the towers lean, although the one that you climb, the Torre d'Asinelli less than the smaller Torre de Garisenda.




Small Tower from Big Tower



Climbing the (very old) wooden staircase.



Another interesting building is the Basilico di San Petronio. It is the fifteenth-largest church in the world, but would have been bigger than St Peter's in Rome if the money for its construction hadn't been spent on the building the university instead. It does hold one record though: laid into the floor is a 66.8m meridian line that is part of the largest sundial in the world.

 

One quirky attraction in the city centre is this arcaded walkway, where you can speak into one side of arch and the sound echoes so that you can be heard perfectly on the other.

 And finally, for perfect views of the main square, you can't beat climbing the stairs in the Palazzo d'Accursio (the town hall) and looking down at what's going on below:

 


* Bologna is often called "la rossa" or "the red" for two reasons: the colour of its bricks and the colour of its traditional politics. The political red has faded somewhat in recent years, but the bricks, as this post proves, remain red (dish brown) as ever.




Queueing with the Carabinieri in Florence

When Understanding Frenchman and I went to Italy back in October, the 27 hours we spent in Florence were something of an afterthought. Our main plan was to see friends in Milan and Bologna, and Florence just happened not to be too far from our planned itinerary.

Turns out, though, that it's not really a place you should try to visit as an afterthought. Or in 27 hours. Because in Florence, to visit just about any place when you haven't reserved days in advance tends to involve spending several hours standing in a queue. Also, you have to pay (a lot) to visit absolutely anything, including churches, so wandering in and out of places just to see if they're interesting isn't really an option.

The most impressive waiting we saw was when we lined up for half an hour in front of the Uffizi to book a slot to visit the following day. The massed queue was managed by the carabinieri, (one of Italy's many police forces), but that didn't stop some brazen souls from jumping it. Once inside, we were informed that all the times up to three o'clock were already full and, with a train to catch at 5pm, we were forced to give up. I was also sad not to climb up to the cupola of the cathedral or the bell tower, but again the queues were so long that both times we tried, we would never actually have got to the front of it before either the place closed or we had to be somewhere else.

Nevertheless, we managed to have a good time, mostly by strolling around and admiring all the gorgeous architecture from the outside:

View of the Duomo from La Rinascente department store. A sneaky look at the view from their tiny terrace is FREE!

Ponte Vecchio. Also free, but better enjoyed from a distance, especially if crowds scare you.

 

Santa Croce church, with a massive piece of public art in the piazza.

The Campanile. I would have loved to climb it, but even just getting this shot made me happy because it's so tall, it was hard to fit it all in!

 

We also visited the interior of the Duomo, which is free, and where the highlight is definitely the cupola, which everyone stands underneath straining their necks to see this amazing work of art:

 

 You just look up, and up and up!

 

 Eternal fires of hell

 

I particularly liked this cheeky skeleton.

 



 In such a touristy city, I was surprised by the friendly service in nearly all the places we ate, particularly from our lunchtime pizza seller who made the effort to check that the temperature of our slices was just right, and the charming waiter in the little trattoria on Borgo Pinti. And on our last walk back to the hotel after dinner, we came across a mime artist doing an old fashioned performance that kept us and the rest of the audience amused for at least half an hour... and there was no queueing involved!

 

 

My Milano

After our sodden first evening in Milan, we were delighted to wake up to a dry day the next morning. Clouds and smog were still sitting low on the rooftops, the city as normal, rather than at its best, but that was what we were there for: so that I could show Understanding Frenchman the city I lived in for a year, just as it really was.

We started out by walking from our hotel through the Giardini Pubblici, one of Milan's prettiest parks, to the Quadrilatero d'Oro, where all the designer flagship stores are. Other people might go there to buy luxury clothing, but we just got harassed by a dreadlocked bracelet-seller and enjoyed gazing at the window displays. We had planned to visit La Scala next, but a combination of the odd opening times of the museum and the fact that you could only see the auditorium from one small vantage point put us off, and we continued through the Gallerie Vittorio Emmanuele, pausing to wonder at the number of people who were spinning on their heels on the testicles of the bull in the floor design for luck. What immediately strikes you in this most ornate of shopping centres is the expensive shopfronts and the gilded arcades, but I happen to know because I've been there that overlooking the galleries are some very ordinary offices with people going about their everyday business inside.

After that we climbed the 200 or so steps up to the roof of the cathedral. A large part of it was unfortunately being refurbished, and the Alps were in hiding that day, but we did get a glimpse of the newest features on the Milanese skyline.

From the duomo, we walked over to the castle and strolled around the Parco Sempione, then took the side exit out to Cadorna station. I was hoping to baffle Understanding Frenchman with the riddle of my favourite sculpture in Milan, but that too was covered in scaffolding, so we jumped on the metro and headed out west so that I could show him the slightly scary street where I lived in a gorgeous apartment instead. It was lunch time, so the dodgy blokes, drug dealers and carabinieri were all on their break and there wasn't much to see, so we took one of the ATM's middle aged (long and orange, with plastic seats) tram back to De Angeli for lunch. My favourite restaurant there seemed to have closed but we managed to find some pasta and do some shopping.

In the afternoon, it was on to the Porta Genova for a walk along the Navigli (currently being drained and therefore with an even larger quantity of rubbish on show than normal, but the atmosphere is still there), then back up past the Roman columns to the centre again.

For dinner, I was excited to be taking Understanding Frenchman out for aperitivo and the lively bar in the Brera that we found didn't disappoint. For nine euros, we each had a gorgeously adorned cocktail and about three plates of nibbles, which was probably more than enough to keep us going, but we couldn't resist an ice cream on the way home anyway.

And that was my tour of my old city. I don't think Understanding Frenchman was blown away by it all, but he did get a feel for the place, and I got to nosy round all my favourite haunts again, so it wasn't a wasted day.

Wet Socks and Fine Dining in Milan

When Understanding Frenchman and I made our first trip together to Italy, the aim of our two days in Milan was for me to introduce him to the city I lived in for a year and give him an insider's peek into la dolce vita alla milanese. On our first day, however, this plan was neatly scuppered by the fact that we stayed at completely the opposite end of town from all my old haunts, coupled with the wettest rain ever to fall on the city. As a result, we spent our first evening hiding under porticoes, darting into shops and peering out at the soggy blackness from underneath a shared umbrella (how romantic ... ).

And so it was that when we pitched up at our friends' house for dinner after waiting for half an hour for a bus, that the first thing we did was ask them to lend us some dry socks.

The evening rapidly improved however, as the prosecco was cracked open and we enjoyed a delicious hot dinner of roast lamb, risotto and caramelised onions, and an even more heated discussion about the correct points to eat bread during a meal and whether it's irritating to correct your other half in the middle of a sentence when they're speaking your mother tongue and not theirs. (My friend, a former colleague, is Irish and her boyfriend Italian, so needless to say, he and Understanding Frenchman put up a united front of Mediterranean solidarity, while she and I defended our right to eat carbohydrates and speak uncorrected.)

The quality of the food, though, was not in question. After the lamb, we had burrata, which is a bit like a giant mozzarella, but much runnier, served with olive oil and cherry tomatoes, and another new experience for me fichi d'India, or Indian figs. These are crazy looking fruits that come in pink and yellow and have hints of spines on the outside. You peel them and eat the inside, which is closest to the seedy part of a kiwi fruit that to anything else I can think of, but as with a pomegranate, you have to be careful not to crunch the seeds, which taste bitter.

I thought I was fairly familiar with most Italian foods, so it was nice to discover there are still delicious surprises out there!

Trilingual Travel in Italy

It's an endlessly occurring experience for Anglophone travellers. You go to another country, bust out your best phrases in the local language, and the serveur, cameriere or Kellner speaks straight back to you in English. "It must be my terrible accent," you think. Or maybe you got a gender wrong. Or quite possibly, it wasn't language at all, but the socks you wore with your sandals, the flaming sunburn or the way you counted on your fingers that gave you away. Either way, Antoine, Giulio or Hans-Peter knew straight away that you were English, American, Irish, Canadian, whatever. Actually, scrub that. Depending on the whiteness of your teeth, he assumed you were either English or American, but that's not really the point. He guessed your mother tongue, so no more speaking foreign languages for you. Or so it seems. But I have often wondered whether the distinction between nationalities is not more a case of "from here/ not from here" and whether people who address me in English are either trying to be helpful or delighted to practise with a native speaker rather than being horrified by my massacring of their beautiful mother tongue. Which is why, travelling in Italy for the first time with my Understanding Frenchman and speaking mostly French, I was intrigued to see what effect my masquerading as a francophone would have on the way people reacted to us. Here are the results: Staff of a multinational hotel chain: mostly Italian, but occasionally English, especially when I was alone and they had seen my passport (and also the time I embarrassingly confused the numbers 12 and 200). None of them spoke French to either of us. Assorted shop staff in Milan, Florence and Bologna: entirely in Italian, even, on occasion to UFM (who speaks no Italian whatsoever) when he was alone. Charming older waiter at a local, non-touristy restaurant in Florence: spoke to us the entire evening in slightly hesitant French. Grumpy waiter in Milan: thought we were Spanish but spoke to us in English anyway. Jumped-up twenty-year old waiter on the main piazza in Bologna: insisted on speaking in English, but his attitude was worthy of a Parisian. Waiter at a Neapolitan restaurant in Bologna with a group of English-speakers: English to the group, camped up French to Understanding Frenchman, and, inexplicably, to my English friend who speaks fluent Italian, large amounts of German. African bracelet sellers on the streets of all three cities: every language under the sun. The conclusion: in Italy, you can get by with English, it's worth trying out your Italian, and if you go to Bracce restaurant in Bologna, the food is amazing and you can speak whatever language you like!

The Lagazuoi Tunnels

The last via ferrata of my Italian trip was the easiest, but the beginning was almost as dramatic as the day before. Having decided not to take the cable car from Falzarego, we were coming to the end of what should have been an easy hike up to the top of the mountain where the via ferrata started when the voices of the gods roared, the heavens opened, and we were caught in a mighty thunderstorm. We were only about 20 minutes away from the refuge, but with the path turned into a small stream and rivulets of water streaking down the mountain, 20 minutes was plenty of time to get soaked.


It was perfect timing for the owners of the refuge, however, as we weren't the only ones that took advantage of it being lunch time to order a hot meal and dry out before making our way out across the ridge to where the via ferrata started.

It's hard to tell amongst the jagged stone of the Dolomites, but an enormous chunk of the mountain above Falzarego is missing, not because of natural erosion or disaster, but because during World War One, the Austrians were dominating the ridge from the top and the Italians were lurking lower down. Neither side was making much progress until the Italians, who had created a network of tun.nels in the mountain below, used explosives to blow away a giant section of the crest. The tunnels have now been turned into an outdoor museum and you can rent an audioguide and read information pannels as you make your way along the iron cable to the bottom.

The via ferrata was only a level 1 and we didn't use harnesses, but we were glad of our helmets, torches and fingerless gloves for holding on to the cables. Spending an hour inside a mountain in dank tunnels isn't exactly pleasant but it does give you some inkling of what life was like for the poor soldiers who carried not only all their provisions but tonnes of explosives and weaponry up the steep paths, then slept in the stone caves in inadequate clothes for the subzero winter temperatures. What is harder to understand, of course, is how these men were able to put up with such circumstances for so long, especially with the hindsight of knowing what a terrible waste the whole war turned out to be.

Via Ferrata Merlone

Monday was my second real day of via ferrata-ing and I made dramatic progress, from a scariness point of view if not a technical one. We decided to take on the Ferrata Merlone, a short, but very exposed climb in the Gruppo dei Cadini di Misurina.

We parked the car just beyond the Lago di Misurina and hiked up a trail through the forest, across a beautiful Alpine meadow filled with what seemed to be an amazing variety of flowers, given the dry desolation of the barren rocks that towered above it. From the Rifugio Fratelli Fonda-Savio it was a short walk up the Alta Via trail to the start of the via ferrata.

Iron Ladders

There is not much that requires particular skill about the Ferrata Merlone, but that can be hard to remember when you are several hundred vertical metres up a rock face, with nothing but stones, scree and thin air beneath you. Parts of the route are scrambly, but most of the climbing is actually done on iron ladders attached at a variety of angles to the mountain. I was able to avoid thinking too much about the exposure and the only part I found at all scary was what the guidebook described as an "airy traverse" - a few horizontal metres on a particularly vertical part of the cliff, with only a slippy and somewhat broken ladder for assistance.

Tre Cime di Lavaredo

We ate our sandwiches at the top and enjoyed the views across to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, but the clouds were drawing in and we soon decided it was time to head down. Unfortunately, a group of about 20 Czechs had decided to come up at that exact moment and they made their turnaround just as we arrived at the top of the cables. With the sky growing ever-darker, we started to make our painfully slow descent in the middle of their group, but after a couple of pitches the raindrops started to fall and, with all those people in front of us, we were going nowhere fast. To top it off, they were clipping 3 people at a time into each section of the cable (you should never have more than one person in each section, otherwise if one person falls they can knock the other off) and a few of them, with clumsy feet, were frequently kicking stones down the mountain, despite the fact that other members of the group below weren't even wearing helmets.

Nobody wants to be caught on the top of a mountain in a thunderstorm, but while being attached to an iron cable is about the worst thing you can do, sitting a couple of metres away from it is actually fairly safe, as the cable will act as a lightning conductor and draw the electricity away from you. We decided that the threat from the humans was worse than the natural dangers and stepped off to the side of the cable to sit and wait.

Luckily for us, although it rained a bit, the thunder and lightning never came and after about 20 minutes we were able to make our way down to the bottom safely. We had learned our lesson though: if you see large groups of people on a via ferrata, steer well clear!

Ferrata di Dibona

On Day 2 of my via ferrata experience, I decided to lower my sights a little and attempt a level 2 ferrata, the nevertheless dramatic-sounding Ferrata di Dibona. We took the Dolomitibus from Cortina to Rio Gere, then the ski-lifts carried us up the mountain to Rifugio G. Lorenzo. The first chairlift was hi-tech and high-speed, with a storm cover and padded seats, but the second was more like the mountain equivalent of a Regionale train, so the total trip took a little while (a lot less than it would have taken us to walk, though!). Up at the refuge, it was quite cold and the wind was blowing clouds around the mountain, but luckily not in the direction we were going.

Rifugio G. Lorenzo. On the left you can just see the longest
ferrata bridge in the Dolomites.

The via ferrata starts with some steep climbing, followed by the longest bridge in the Dolomites, which, compared to the scary wire bridge on my first via ferrata, (in St-Christophe-en-Oisans in France) was reassuringly disappointing, being very solid and firmly attached to both sides of the ravine it was crossing. We did the optional climb to the Cresta Bianca, which gave us a great view down to the refuge and the way we had come.

View of the ridge from the Cresta Bianca

The Ferrata di Dibona is essentially a fabulous, exposed ridge walk. It takes the whole day but most of the trail was not difficult at all, and definitely more like hiking than rock-climbing, although there were bits that would have been a bit scary if we hadn't been clipped in to the cable. You can either come down part-way along and take a not-very-pleasant path across some scree and back to the chairlift, or you can carry on all the way to the end of the ridge and down to Ospitale, where there are buses back to Cortina. We chose the second option, which included no less than 1600m of descent but took a very pretty zigzagging path off the mountain. Most other people seemed to be taking the other route down, so we had the path more or less to ourselves and returned to the bottom with aching knees and heads full of the stunning airy views from the ridge.

Ferrata dei Alpini

Cinque Torri from Falzarego

A little-known part of the history of WW1 is the battles that were fought in the mountains of northern Italy. The Italians were defending their border with the Austro-Hungarian empire and the ridges and summits of the Dolomites became the equivalent of the trenches in northern France. It seems unbelievable that anyone could fight a war in an environment so treacherous that one insecure footing can kill a modern hiker, but they did, and more soldiers died in avalanches here than were killed by poison gas in the Somme. This was not really a front that advanced, but more a line of defence, and the only territory that was won in the long-term was when Sud Tirol was handed over to Italy and became what is now called Alto Adige. Cortina is in the largely Italian speaking part of the region but in the towns and villages to the north, people speak German and have a stronger regional than national identity.

Remains of a WW1 Hospital at Falzarego

One of the consequences of the war that remains to this day is the network of vie ferrate , or "iron ways" that crisscross the Dolomites. These were originally built to allow the soldiers to traverse the mountains and are essentially assisted rock-climbing routes made up of metal cables that you clip on to, and sometimes steps and ladders attached to the rocks. The easier parts are just exposed hiking trails but the harder ones require real rock-climbing skills.

You can hire the climbing kit at the outdoor shops in Cortina for around 12 euros per day. As I had done one fairly scary via ferrata once before, as well as a (very small) amount of rock climbing, we decided on the first day to tackle a grade 3 route (out of 5), the Ferrata dei Alpini at Falzarego.

I was somewhat daunted by the vertical-ness of the cliff that confronted me at the beginning, but, knowing that rock-climbing is often easier than it looks, I clipped in and got started. Unfortunately, about 3 stages in, there was a point where I needed to step across ... or up ... or even just round a big lump of jutting out rock. And I tried, in every possible direction, with every possible body part, but I didn't yet have the balance in my legs or the strength in my arms and I just couldn't do it.

A little disappointed, I climbed back down and resigned myself to taking the walking path to the top of the route, admiring the view and taking pictures of all the pretty flowers along the way. And when my brother and his wife arrived at the top and confirmed that the rest of the climb was just as difficult (and much harder than the other grade 3s they had tried), I didn't regret my decision at all. Tomorrow, after all, would be another day.

Camping in Cortina

I left the B&B early on Saturday morning and hauled myself and all my worldly goods to the bus station. I bought my ticket and the man helpfully told me which stance to go to. This turned out to be just as well, because Treviso bus station has a high-tech system of screens which announce departures, but my bus never appeared on any of them. It was easy enough to find the right place though, as it was the only stop where at least half of the passengers were wearing hiking boots.

Normally I'm not a fan of long-distance bus travel, especially on winding mountain roads, but this coach was air-conditioned and comfortable, and from my seat at the front I had a fabulous view of the increasingly stunning scenery as we wended our way up the valley. And also of the unending drama between the driver and the passengers who wanted to get off along the way. The driver seemed to have decided that some of the stops were request stops and, as we approached them, would ask, in a voice that was far too quiet to be heard at the back of the bus, if anyone wanted to get off. If there was nobody waiting at the stop, he would simply drive straight past, only to be forced to screech to a halt as somebody appeared from the rear seats desperately asking to be let off the bus. For the one lady who had understood his system, though, he chivalrously offered to drop her off outside her house in the village instead of at the official stop. Nevertheless, I was glad that Cortina was the terminus and the bus would have to stop there!

My brother picked me up in Cortina and drove us to the Camping Dolomiti, which is just out of town next to the ski jump that was built for the 1956 Olympics. My brother and his wife had already checked in, so I went to the reception to explain that I would be sharing their camping pitch for the next few days. He had very few teeth and spoke dialect, so we had a hard time understanding each other, but although standard Italian didn't seem to be in his repertoire, he spoke very good French, which helped us to get by. There was a Spanish couple next to me who were trying to find out the best place to get the wheel of their car fixed, and, despite the fact that I don't speak any Spanish, I ended up trying to interpret for them. Any hopes of a possible career change I might have had were swiftly shattered, however, as when I left the office, I heard him say to them, "So, you need to repair the wheel of your bicycle?" Living in polyglot land is fun!

The man was actually very helpful though, and the campsite was lovely. It was shady and had a swimming pool and a great view of the mountains and, best of all, really warm showers and a bar serving delicious hot chocolate, both of which turned out to be an important feature of our holiday, especially when the thunderstorms drew in at the end of the week, soaking us to the skin on the mountain top and testing my 25 euro Decathlon tent to its limits!

Treviso

The main purpose of my trip to Italy this time round was to hike in the Dolomites. My brother and his wife were staying in Cortina d'Ampezzo and had invited me (well, actually, I invited myself) to join them. And, back in May, when I saw the price of train tickets to Milan, I bought them straight away. Train travel is relatively easy in Italy, and I figured I could work out the rest later.

Train travel is easy in Italy. Unfortunately, Cortina doesn't have a train station.

In high season, travelling to Cortina is not actually that difficult. Calalzo, the nearest railway station, is connected to Cortina by a shuttle bus, and there are long-distance coaches from Milan, Venice. Bologna and Padova. Unfortunately, while the transport network is very efficient, the websites which supply this information are not. But after a lot of digging around on the internet, I devised a 27-hour itinerary that took me from Paris to Milan, from Milan to Mestre, from Mestre to Treviso and from Treviso to Cortina.

And so it was that I found myself spending the night in Treviso.

 I stayed at the B&B Appiani 36, a small, friendly and very comfortable little place that I found on http://www.hostelworld.com/. Having dropped off my bags, I had a few hours to explore the city before bedtime.

Treviso is a very pretty little city, although I suspect there isn't much there to occupy visitors for any great length of time. The old town is surrounded by a very clean, very green looking river and fortified by city walls. I found my way to the centre, where, in the main square, I happened to stumble upon a show that was being put on by the local dance schools, so I sat outside on a terrace to watch as I had my tea.



I don't know a lot about dance, but the performances looked pretty good to me. What was strange, however, was being there all by myself. It was one of those occasions where all the local people turn out with their families, chat to their friends and run into everybody else that they know, and where the socialising is as important as the show. I love those evenings in Italy, because Italians do them better than anybody else.

But it made me feel glad that I was meeting my own family the next day. Italy isn't a place to be alone for too long.

Lost in Italy

Parigi - Lione - Torino - Milano ... Paris - Lyon - Turin - Milan*


It's become something of a habit for me to take this train at least once a year, usually in the summer, and my trip of 2012 started on Friday of last week, unsociably early in the morning. With three new books downloaded onto my Kindle, the entire archive of a newly discovered blog to read, and gorgeous scenery flashing by outside the window, I had no worries about how to fill the time. (I may have napped a little too).

And then I stepped off on to the platform in Milan and felt strangely disorientated. It was partly that the train, which used to go directly to Milano Centrale, now terminates at the Porta Garibaldi. I had to take the metro, and I was fairly sure it was the green line, but I couldn't remember which direction and didn't know automatically which buttons to press on the ticket machine. Apparently three years is enough to forget what a metro map looks like.

But it wasn't really that. It wasn't really the language either, because a diet of Rai television , Italian novels and conversations with friends here in Paris is enough to keep the words fairly near the front of my mind from one visit to the next.

What I had forgotten was how to behave. Not my manners, of course, but those small, subconscious signals that we give out that show that we are local or foreign, lost or comfortable in our own skin. How loudly do you speak? Walking into a shop, at what point do you say Buongiorno? Or do you use Ciao? And more than anything, when do you look people in the eye, and when is it safer to keep your glances to yourself?

For a couple of hours, I felt foreign. Then slowly it came creeping back, and I felt at home in Italy again.