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Tag Archives: Italy

Milan in the rain, on the cheap

08 Saturday Nov 2014

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I arrive in Milan on a gray and sopping wet day, and am greeted in the baggage claim area by a bevy of tourist fliers, all of which appear to be for shopping. Haute couture shopping, fine leather goods, discount malls in nearby Switzerland. The fliers and the weather are so discouraging, in fact, that taking a nap in the airport to catch up on the sleep I didn’t get on the plane seems like the best option for the morning, so I find a not-horrible spot and pop my silicone earplugs in. Several hours later, after wiping the drool from my chin, I make my way into the city to meet up with my couchsurfing host at the prearranged time, on a particular set of stairs at a particular metro stop.

We’re going climbing at the least-expensive place in Milan, Passagio Obbligato, an old-school bouldering gym packed with people who seem pretty serious about it. My host climbs longer than I do, so I take a break and attempt to read the Italian-language climbing magazines. I’m flipping through Pareti when I see a headline that includes the word Spokane. This makes me laugh, so there in Italy, I try to piece together what they’re saying about the climbing in my area back home. I think it’s good?

The next day, all I really need to do is make it to my 3 o’clock appointment to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s mural of The Last Supper. I purchased a ticket a month in advance for 8 euros online, having discovered that this was imperative if you actually wanted to see it — pro tip: check out the official link and select the date and time you want; other sites will likely charge you more.

I’m packed up and planning on leaving my bag at Cadorna, the nearby train station, but as it turns out, they have no lockers (pro tip: they do have lockers at the Centrale station), so I end up wheeling my little suitcase through the rain to the church, over the cobblestones. I purchase a 5-euro umbrella from a street vendor, since I have brought no rain gear, and I have my luggage in one hand and the umbrella in the other. Due to how lightly I packed, this is not as horrible as it sounds. I try to think of it as forearm training for rock climbing.

Once I’m inside the inner sanctum that is the Cinacola Vinciano, I park my bags in a corner and stare at The Last Supper for 15 minutes in near-total silence. They let a handful of people in for a quarter of an hour at a time, and the result is quite good. Reverent, even.IMG_9829 Duomo Milan IMG_9847

Then I walk to the Duomo, still hauling my suitcase, picking my way through the warren of small streets with the aid of my paper map, which is going limp in the drizzle. Then, worn out, I take the metro two stops to Crocetta and find Palo Alto, where I’ve been told there is an English conversation group that meets at 8 pm on Wednesdays. Apparently, it’s centered around the aperetivo common to Milan, where you buy a drink and get small plates of food for free. It’s only 5 euros — quite a bargain, because the food is not at all bad. Neither is the conversation. In short order, I meet an Italian with a near-perfect American accent who tells me he does Civil War reenactments with a small group here in Italy, which I have never even heard of. He prefers playing the South because the costumes are cheaper. He’s also done some WWII reenactment in Russia, apparently. I meet an Indian from Zurich who tells me how much he loves his job driving a pedicab: “It’s effortless, it flows like a river.” He says he takes it upon himself to make everyone he carts around feel special and connected, and he knows just how to do it. “Usually it’s music and alcohol,” he says. “People are simple.”

I meet Spanish women from Valencia and an Irishman who is busy correcting the near-perfect-American-accent guy’s English by telling him you shouldn’t say “typing on the computer,” because that means “typo.” I say nah, you can say that. The American-accent guy rebuffs the Irishman with “You are boring!” and everyone around him cheers.

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The fortress of San Nicola

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

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The most inhabited island in the Tremiti archipelago is San Nicola, although that’s not saying much. After leaving the docks, we ran into a woman who had a bed and breakfast on the island, and that’s about it. Our main purpose for seeing the island was to examine the fortress, which had a long history; a mix of monks, invading pirates, Roman exile, and World War II-era internment. Most of what was left of all of this was a smattering of Latin above the gates, and the views of the walls. Inside, it had turned into a sleepy little village.

The sea below was pristine. The tides circulate in such a way that the water closer to Croatia, with its rough cliffs, is clearer than it is in sandy Italy. But this volcanic island, situated just off the coast of Italy, has waters more like Croatia’s. The photo above is the real color of the water, a pale, dappled turquoise.

The lighthouse of Capraia

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

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ImageOn the island of Capraia, there is bright sunlight, harsh wind, seagulls, and not much else. It was once tended by a lighthouse, which has since fallen into disrepair. Now nobody lives on the island at all.

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You can find only the remnants of civilization, unless you bring your own. But nonetheless, it is beautiful. As the story goes, this collection of islands once housed Julia the Younger, the granddaughter of Emperor Augustus, during her exile. It is not too difficult to imagine it.The lighthouse was filled with plaster dust that had collected on the stairs and over the chipped tiles. If you walked up the winding staircase to the roofless lookout, you could see miles in every direction. And then you realized just how wild the place was.

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CouchSurfing Italy

15 Friday Jun 2012

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In Italy, my accommodation is taken care of via CouchSurfing, a website and, for some, an entire way of life. It’s like karma, or Christianity, or anarchy, or socialism. I think different people have slightly different motivations for doing it. Some (the ones who “are not true couchsurfers”) are just looking for a free place to stay. Others are intrigued by what amounts to a mini cultural exchange. One of the people I stayed with, Alex, looked at me like I was crazy when I asked why he, personally, did it. “I think it’s obvious,” he said “this is a way to meet people from different places. And with CouchSurfing, I can go anywhere in the world and have a friend.”

This, perhaps, is the most appealing part of it. It isn’t just cheap accommodation. It’s the experience of seeing a place through the eyes of a local. It’s the experience of having someone by your side to share it with.

You make your judgment to stay with or host someone largely based on the person’s online profile — including feedback other people have left after staying or hosting. You can check out the feedback if you want; I’ve had girls contact me about references I’ve left for other people. But still, the idea is a bit odd. Staying with people you don’t know. Welcoming them almost without question.

One night, I make a joke to Massimo, a Roman I’m staying with, about how CouchSurfing is basically like everything your mother told you never to do. He laughs. “Yes,” he agrees “A stranger is on your doorstep and you say to him, come in.”

Not everyone is so polite, of course, and I think it takes a certain mindset to be able to couchsurf gracefully, not to mention wisely. A certain mindset and a certain hardness of hip, because the place you end up sleeping may not always be at the level of a four-star hotel. On a pragmatic note, you should probably also have a mobile phone that works in that country, be clear about when you’re meeting and where, and once you get to your destination, be respectful and organized with your stuff. Share your life (and your chocolate) as much as you can; that’s kind of the point.

The latter half of my visit to Rome, I find someone who says I can stay in his apartment even though he is not there. Another couchsurfer is there already, he tells me. Wilma, from Chile. Wilma knows that I am coming, and greets me with a dustcloth in hand. She asks if I speak Italian or Spanish. I say no. She says she doesn’t speak English, but she says it in English, so I say, I can help teach you if you want.

Wilma had been cleaning the apartment, which is plastered with thank-you notes from other couchsurfers, but she takes a break to make us some tea and get acquainted. She is 50 years old, and has a daughter my age. She’s spent the last year in Italy traveling around after selling everything she owned in Chile and returning here, because her grandparents were Italian, and they regretted never coming back. So now, she is “closing the circle.”

After tea, she is tired from trying so hard to speak English, so we clean the apartment together. I sweep, she mops. This is what I do when I couchsurf, she says. I put the place in order. “I was…” she hesitates, and says a few words in Spanish and Italian, until I decide that “disorganized” is the one she wants. And then she needs “before.” But now, CouchSurfing has forced her to be organized. I nod. I understand. And much later, when I return to the United States, I think of her as I unpack my tiny suitcase into the chaos of my walk-in closet. I almost miss having so little.

In search of the best pizza in Rome

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

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Louis has family in Rome, and he asks me to go visit them for him. They’re his second cousins or something along those lines, and there are three brothers who own a pizzaria not far from the Spanish steps, he tells me. Also, as a bonus, it’s supposed to be the best pizza in Rome, although my source may be biased. “Go early,” he tells me “it can get crowded.”

I take the metro to Spagna and head down Via Condotti. Valentino, Prada, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel line the street, displaying impossibly high heels and beaded dresses and delicious leather handbags. Behind me, the sun is setting. At the end of the street, there’s a huge sign for Fendi, and a triangular mess of small streets, and I duck into the Via Leoncino and find myself face to face with the pizzaria.

There’s a man at the door who I find out later is called Antonio, and I remember that I should have been practicing my Italian on the way over to try to explain the point of my visit. I get as far as “yo sono…” and then ask if he speaks English. Not very well, he says, and thinks I want something to eat when I try to tell him who I am. I shake my head.

“La familia DiConti,” I say, “In America. You know? I am the girlfriend of Luigi DiConti.”

He is intrigued, but still very confused, so he takes me back to the pizza oven and finds someone who speaks slightly more English than he does. It is enough to get the point across. I find a photo on the wall of Marc, Louis’ father, from when all the family but Louis came to visit the Italian cousins, and point. Antonio asks me, in Italian, which one of the brothers pictured is my boyfriend. I shake my head. He says, oh, he was the one in Iraq. I nod. “Si, si,” I say. Is he still in Iraq, or did he come back? Asks Antonio. I gesture cheerfully to indicate that in fact, he has come back.

At this point, two other older men, the other two brothers who own the pizzaria, come out and kiss me on both cheeks. They welcome me in Italian, and I sit down, and order in (bad) Italian. That much I can do. My pizza comes, along with my sparkling water, and a few locals come in and sit down. I can hear Antonio explaining to one well-dressed couple who I am. The man speaks English, and he tells me, grandly, that this is the best place for Roman pizza in all of Rome. It’s the best pizza I’ve had in Rome, anyway. It is nothing like American pizza, and the crust is so thin in spots that it crumbles like a cracker. The olives, salty and plump, still have the pits in them.

I finish the entire pizza, and I ask the waiter for the bill. He goes off, and Antonio comes back. “No, no,” he says, waving his hand at me. He turns and asks the couple to translate for him.

“No, no,” the woman repeats, waving her hand.

“It’s only one pizza,” the man finishes for Antonio.

The other two brothers come out again and kiss me goodbye, along with Antonio. They say to give their regards to Luigi and Marco. I nod. The well-dressed man repeats this for me in English case I haven’t understood.

And then I head back towards the metro, with a full stomach, smiling.

The papal blessing that was not

05 Tuesday Jun 2012

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There’s a whole passel of people, Catholic and non, going to Rome with Emily and Thomas to see them get the papal blessing on their newly-minted marriage. I have the same flight from Cork they do, as does Mary, so we all share a cab to the airport. Em manages to convince Aer Lingus to give them an extra seat for her wedding dress.

ImageEm and Thomas have been planning this for months. They had to apply, get tickets, and the day of, they have to get up at five in the morning, put on their wedding garb, wait in line for front-row seats, run to claim them, and sit in the sun for about six hours, only one of which is taken up with the papal address. They had been planning to get sandwiches to take with them, but room service is not available at five in the morning in Italy. So the day of the blessing, they sit, in the front row, hungry, and getting more sunburned by the minute, as the Pope gives a short address, which is then translated into French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish. Then it is time for him to bless sacred objects and Catholic people, and Em and Thomas wait for him to come and pray over them in their native language, as they have heard he has done in the past. But apparently he gives the ticket-buying crowd a quick wave over his shoulder and that’s it. He does some other blessings and gets on his Popemobile and goes to wave at the larger crowd below. Which is exciting for the crowd below, but bitterly disappointing for Emily and Thomas.