Day 1. Milan: local market.

We arrived in Milan with our 2 fellow adventurers at  about 7am after the usual gruelling trip from Melbourne via Abu Dhabi.  Why is Australia so far away from everywhere?  Over 20 hours on a plane and protracted stays in airports is not my idea of fun!  Amazingly, we managed to navigate the train system and end up at Cadorna station, where we settled in to a cafe with all our bags to drink coffee, procrastinate and people watch, while trying to decide the best way to get to our apartment, which unfortunately wasn’t available until 12.15. It turns out that exercise groups and tour groups meet in the area outside the station, so we enjoyed ourselves watching the healthy types setting off virtuously for runs, and gate crashed a tour to interview the leader about a possible walking tour.  I discovered that I can understand Italian, and felt very daring as I tried out the Italian I learned from my children when they were in primary school. I don’t think the waitresses were as impressed as I was, but at least I try!

After a while, we decided we couldn’t be bothered to navigate the metro with all our bags, so gave up on public transport and all piled into a taxi to get to the apartment.  I was wondering what I had booked as the architecture we had seen on the train did not look all that exciting.  Sure, there are lots of great window boxes, verandah plantings and roof top gardens, but the apartment blocks are generally very blah.

 

 Turns out that our apartment is in one of the gated community apartment blocks.  We were far too early so we trundled down to one of the neighbourhood cafes which doubles as a book shop, and wasted time checking out the books, drinking orange juices and coffees, and eating rather nice bagels.  More people watching ensued.  This time we watched the family groups popping in for Nutella croissants and the spoiling of children ( Italian children get kissed and cuddled a lot by everyone, which is so heartwarming), singles popping in for a quick coffee at the counter, men popping in to  joke with the two men behind the counter, women coming in to tell each other tragic stories as they indulged in sweet cakes, young girls spending more time chatting than eating or drinking.  It was clearly okay to sit and chat for as long as you wanted, so we joined the locals in wasting time and watching the world go by.  Sunday is also clearly a day for walking the dog, and having an apartment doesn’t stop owners for having several dogs of various shapes and sizes: an arthritic pug, a weimeramer running alongside a bicycle, chihuahuas, Sheba Inus, mongrels, a cocker spaniel, golden retrievers.  All of them leaving their droppings on the pavements for us to dodge.

Then, we tried to get into our apartment, a small problem which our host had not explained how to solve.  A helpful lady with the rough voice of a male wharfie and no English let us in to the compound based on our innocent demeanours, in spite of all the security warnings everywhere, and revealed that there were 4 huge apartment blocks behind the gates, and the apartment we wanted was in one of them.  We had been unable to get internet, or buy a new SIM card, so contacting the owner was difficult.  The lady suggested we try the apartment number in each block, so that is what we did.  In the second block we met a nice man who spoke English and he helped us work out the intercom system. After travelling up and down in the elevator, we hit it lucky and managed to contact the owner, who sent someone to let us in.  Relief!  We were in our stylish apartment on the 10th floor , in spite of the number being 144, and we could divest ourselves of all our luggage.

Our next step was to explore the local street market.  Apart from an odd assortment of children’s rides, garish toys, and a peculiar show which seemed like an Italian karaoke stage, where an apparently mentally deficient and completely tone deaf boy was being encouraged to belt out an excruciating song, there were stalls which sold very, very cheap clothing, which all apparently came from the same factory, and revolting household items, as well as a fantastic assortment of cheeses,

meats

 fruit,

vegetables, pickles, breads and biscuits.

Food is so good and so cheap and so fresh!  I just drool continuously. A bit like a bulldog, I think  I need my lips to be wiped continually


 We loaded up, undeterred by the rather forlorn heads  of long dead deer

and wild boars,

which were apparently there tempting us to buy more meat, and headed home for a late lunch.  What a feast!

 Unfortunately, the effects of the good food and a bottle of Chianti, on top of a long trip with little to no sleep was a general break down of energy.  Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.