Secondo: Italy Wrap-Up

Happy 4th of July to all those in the States. Here, it’s just a Tuesday but only ten days until Bastille Day!

I took a solo trip to Genoa — another city name that we have anglicized — hopping a train and getting off downtown in less than an hour. Denise wasn’t interested in going so she stayed home with Coco while I went to investigate the birthplace of an American hero — despite having never set foot on US soil — Christopher Columbus. Obviously, he is still highly regarded in his hometown, despite being all-but-canceled in the United States, and he had statues and monuments everywhere, despite latter-day complaints of Genoa-cide. (I made that joke up and I’m very proud of it. A quick internet search confirms that I am the first to make the Genoa-Genocide connection, so there.) I only had the afternoon to explore so I didn’t get a full feel for the city, mostly just walking from the train station to Cavour 21, the restaurant that Reilly had recommended and then back, taking my time and trying to soak up as much as possible. The route I took east was on Via Garibaldi, a narrow passageway that, like in Venice, I wouldn’t call a “street.” It leads through the heart of the commercial district and it’s mostly made up of tall apartment buildings with ground floor retail spaces that serve the immigrant population of the neighborhood (largely northern Africans).

After a delicious plate of the regional special: pesto with pasta, green beans, and potatoes, washed down with a local white wine (totat cost: ten euros fifty), I began my meander back to the train station. After a piccolo cup of gelato, I took in a trio of Palazzos, once the homes of the Genoese one percenters, now interconnected as a museum, with period furniture, artifacts, and paintings filling the rooms. The wealth of the collections was impressive but the rooms were very stuffy and could use some ceiling fans to keep the air moving. I mean, would it kill them to install a few? That issue aside, it’s a grand and fabulous city with some churches that rival the grandest of Firenze and Siena. My only complaint would be that the harbor is cut off from the city by a wide roadway. We saw from the ferry that the waterfront has a lot going on but the highway seems like a barrier. Maybe I just didn’t do it right but I’ve got the Genoa-cide joke going for me which is nice. 

Later that week, we took a Sunday day trip to Alessandria, the nearest biggish city to Novi, and decided to check out their old fort, which is across the river from the downtown. To get there, you cross a hyper-modern pedestrian bridge, the kind that you find in cities that don’t have a lot else going for them, and enter the citadel through the 18th-century gates into the grounds. It was too hot to be in an unprotected area like that so we headed for the city where we could find a pizza and a cold drink. It’s got some cool buildings and a nice statue of hometown boy Umberto Eco, but it was otherwise unremarkable to our eyes. It’s always interesting to visit Italian (or French) towns on a Sunday: in the morning, seemingly everyone and their babies are out and about but, after lunch, it’s like a neutron bomb went off. Of  course, in the summer it makes perfect sense to roll down the shades and hide until the temperature becomes bearable again. 

Acqui Terme (Italian for Spa Waters) is about 45 minutes from Novi Ligure and one of the towns that locals always told us to visit when they found out we were here for a while. The Sunday drive there was through the heart of the Piemontese countryside with miles and miles of sunflowers and wheat fields. We stopped in tiny Sezzadio to admire their church — another town with a cathedral way out of proportion to the size of the population — and made it to Acqui Terme a few hours before the town shut down for their Sunday afternoon. 

After getting the lowdown from the AT tourist office, we set off to explore the churches and Roman ruins for which the town is famous. After taking it from the Greeks in 172, the Romans set up some of their famous baths to take advantage of the local hot springs. In fact, there’s a fountain in one piazza that dispenses water 24-7 at 75 degrees centigrade, and has for centuries. Of course, people line up at that fountain like toddlers at a stove to touch the scalding water, quickly pulling their hands away when their brain confirms the temperature. I’m not good at C to F conversions but I had no interest in sticking my hand in something that was steaming. In litigious America, we guessed, they wouldn’t let you anywhere near that fountain.

We walked over the river to the site of some Roman aqueduct ruins and a little further on to check out a large public swimming pool that was also fed by the hot springs. Unfortunately, the giant complex was closed, the pool green with algae, perhaps a casualty of Covid. It’s easy for foreigners like us to forget that Italy was hit early and hard by the pandemic and many public spaces have still not reopened. The same was true of the Roman baths a little ways away: closed down and the parking lots covered in weeds. It’s sad to see but I can’t blame them for being cautious. 

Denise is in Milan(o) today, doing a solo trip to check out the Duomo. We probably should have gone on the day of Silvio Berlusconi’s funeral but spaced on that spectacle. It was too hot to take Coco so I volunteered to stay home and dog sit, taking the hit on my steps average for the month. Coco and I just sat inside with the blinds closed, like any smart Italian would do. Here’s Denise’s report from Milan: 

A Day in Milano!

After hours of carefully plotting out my day in Milan, I hopped on an early train for the big city, sans Steve and Coco. IMHO, train travel is delightful no matter where you are headed! I struck up a conversation with a couple of students from the University du Pavia who were studying for their exams in International Relations.  They each spoke four languages and all they wanted to do was move to the United States.   

We pulled into Milano Centrale station and I was immediately awestruck. The scale is utterly fantastic. Completed in 1930, the imposing design was intended to showcase the dominance of Mussolini’s fascist regime and it clearly succeeds. It’s intimidating! It’s also the second largest station in Italy but that did not deter me from finding my way through the cavernous spaces to the underground Metro so I could get on to my first stop of the day, the Duomo. After many wrong turns I finally found the correct platform and, four stops later, emerged into the bright sun in front of a most astonishing cathedral. Honestly, not to humble brag but I’ve seen a lot of sacred houses of worship in my travels: the Hagia Sophia; St. Peter’s Basilica; Notre Dame; Duomo Florence; Meiji Jingu Shinto Shrine; La Sagrada Familia; Westminster Abbey; blah, blah, blah, but Duomo di Milano stands in a class of its own.  First of all, it took 600 years to build and is the largest church in Italy.  Plus, it has something like 8,000 statues in and around the place.  It’s dripping in paintings and sculptures and stained glass. It’s not for the faint of heart as plenty of Catholic gore is represented. Fortunately, I had a small scarf with me to cover my shoulders otherwise I would have been turned away or had to purchase a 3 euro paper tent for modesty.  I was surprised that there was an entrance fee, however, as I thought all churches were free. 

Anyway – after a sufficient amount of gawking and photo taking I moved on to my next stop, a fancy lunch in the premier shopping arcade of Milan, Il Toro della Galleria.

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I should take a minute here to also explain that on the day I chose to go to Milan a big music festival was taking place directly opposite the Duomo in the main piazza and seemingly every teenager in northern Italy was there. It was wild to see hundreds of teens, corralled by the Carabinieri for crowd control, waiting patiently to be let into the main stage area. They all wore the same ‘uniform’ of cut-off shorts, T-shirts, and all carried iPhones, and could seemingly care less about anything or anyone other than the music blasting from the stage. 

My lunch of salad and spritz was indeed fancy but not expensive!  I sat directly across from the Prada and Fendi stores and had an excellent perch for people watching.

 

After, I set off for a ramble through the back streets in the direction of the part of town known for great vintage shopping.  I loved window shopping and stopping wherever I liked and occasionally even stopping to read historic markers. I shopped at four different vintage boutiques and saw amazing things from fashion’s top European designers. (If you go, head towards Via Gian Giacomo Mora for a string of shops on one long block.)  It was pure joy.  Of course I wanted to buy everything, but I’m pretty committed to not acquiring anything during our travels as it will be one more thing to carry.  So ‘looking’ was perfectly fine (well, sort of).

The day wound down with more rambling on foot in the 95 degree heat, which was definitely starting to wear on me. I had more points of interest I wanted to take in but Milan is a HUGE city and it’s loud and busy and jam packed with people, cars, motorbikes, and the like. One needs at least a few days to take it in.  I realized that I was just a simple girl from Novi and would soon turn into a pumpkin if I didn’t make my way back to the Centrale station to catch my 4:25 to Novi Ligure. Caio! And now, back to Steve for the wrap-up.

 As you can see, we are trying to take in as many sights as possible on our trip while still taking care of daily business like shopping, cooking, cleaning, and, most importantly, dog-walking. I imagine this life is similar to how we would spend our days if we were retired and still living in Portland: exploring local cities and getting out into nature as much as possible. Our only regret is not having more time in Turin, Genoa, and Milan, amazing cities that we hope to return to and explore further. 

We just landed in the mid-Pyrenees town of Pierrefitte-Nestalas, our home for July and one of the most beautiful areas we’ve ever visited. It’s a world away from the grittiness of Novi Ligure and we hope to make the most of every day.