going home

As always, I am up just before the phone rings with the wake up call. This day will be long and I have three flights before me, one of them very long, but my Milan airport is close (like, the Warsaw airport -- just 30 minutes by city bus), my layovers are comfortable, the sun is out, life is good.

I check out without breakfast. I'm back to saving money. I'll have a (free) munch at the airports and gobble food on the flights.

The young man at the checkout counter has the name tag of Pawel. He speaks perfect Italian and English, but I know that name to be Polish! I immediately switch languages and he does a double take -- nothing in your record indicates... 
Yes, well, you know how it is -- you leave, change names, passports. But in fact I'm just coming from Warsaw.
And how did you like it?
What, Warsaw? Milan? The hotel?
Let's start with the hotel...

He is such a friendly, genial young man! And it strikes me that at the Guilia, it must be in the job description: be not only warm and cheerful, but energetically so! They all seem to bounce with enthusiasm for the hotel, for your stay there, for life!

It's really a wonderful thing to be surrounded by upbeat people.

I walk to my bus stop (Pawel confirmed that they just moved it about a month or two ago), crossing the Duomo Square and I think -- every city in the early morning (it is now 7 a.m.) is interesting. Even Milan.






I linger and watch the early morning buzz around the square. You're okay, Milan. Not great, but then, we can't all be above average.

The bus (no 73) departs every six minutes and costs 1.5 Euro and is practically empty. I highly recommend it.

Here's an interesting view of the Duomo, as seen through the bus window.






And finally, here's my meager breakfast at the airport. Oh well. Free is free and I do like the yellow arm chair.






Just one more photo from Europe. It'll be a sad day when I fly over the Alps and am not inspired to find a beautiful image there. This one, of the Matterhorn and, too, of the hills and mountains that lead up to is seemed especially enchanting.






I have a long-ish layover in Paris, which is fine: the terminal used for transatlantic flights is spacious and attractive. I've been sleeping well and so I am not wiped out. Still, life may be good, but it offers its periodic showers (sometimes hailstorms) of stresses and so I am thrilled to see that Air France (my overseas airline today) is partnering with Clarins (a French facial cream company) to give free (yes, free!) twenty minute neck and facial treatments. All you have to do is sign up.

I do sign up! I'm sure my email address will now be putty in their corporate advertising hands, but it will have been worth it!

I choose the "radiance" treatment because it has cherries in the picture and that seems so right for this season.

The massage and treatment are exquisite! This isn't the serious one hour deal I would have had in Poland, where they work hard to clean and buff up your poor, tired skin. This is a treatment where lights are dim and there is New Age music in the background and the woman who works on you is there to make you love what she is doing to you, whether or not it makes a great difference going forward.

I know about all the science behind aging skin (you can't really stop it). I'm familiar with the reports that demonstrate that expensive creams do little to make your skin look young again. To tell you the truth, I don't care that much about looking this way or that -- I want it to feel good. As good as it can be, at whatever age it is.

Maybe I took a little of Parma home with me?

And despite the day of travel, my face and neck feel grand! I'm thinking maybe my grandmother figured this out intuitively: feel good and look good are indeed intimately connected. My grandma had a beautiful old face. If there were wrinkles on it -- they would have been the laugh kind. For her granddaughters, she always had a chuckle. Until recently, I thought this was just some genetic miracle: a baby smooth skin, with no recourse to creams or some such nonsense. But just the other day, through the familial grapevine, I learned that my grandma regularly put cucumbers on her face at night. Surely not for my grandfather (for one thing he died much earlier) nor the village people.

Perhaps she was doing it for herself?


I promised a very short post! Let me fly (!) through the rest of the day:

If my ocean crossing east was bumpy, my return west was smooth as glass. I have no complaints. I ate, drank champagne (always free on Air France) and read two excellent books.

That would wrap it up for this trip except for this funny detail: I got it in my head that I had a three hour layover in Detroit and that my Madison flight left at 10. In fact it leaves closer to 8 (with less than an hour to catch it). I mixed up the last trip and the next one with this one. Do I need to slow down??

No, I do not. Not yet.

But I am so happy to see Ed there in his torn pants (Ed, why are you wearing long pants?? Mosquitoes...)  and ancient t-shirt, looking the best that he can be, waiting at the airport to take me home.

leaving Parma

If I had any doubt that Parma is a city of streets teeming with bicycles and people -- people riding bicycles, people stopping to connect with others, people sitting, eating, but first and foremost talking -- today's morning walk surely confirmed for me that this is so.






I suppose that closing off the city center to traffic forces you to review your options. People of all ages and sizes choose bikes.












As for chatting -- well, that's an Italian thing. It's just that in Parma, with with streets free of cars, there are more opportunities to engage in this important act.






Plenty of space for it.






For me, Parma this time was also a city of distinct color.






Of art, food, of sunshine.












The weather continues to be hot, and the people expect this, in the same way that I expect mosquitoes in the summer and Arctic blasts in the winter back in Wisconsin.

And let me add one more point -- one that became amply evident to me this time (when people were free of winter outerwear): in Parma, if you step out into public spaces, you do your best to look your best. This is particularly true for women.






Now this last point may cause you to flinch: isn't that a step back? Haven't we moved beyond being judged for our appearance? Feel free to pass judgment on this Parma imperative, but it is what it is and if you take Patrizia's point to heart -- you look your best not for others, but for your own self -- perhaps it can be a very good thing. (I smile as I watch her lay out her dress-up clothes and jewelry on her bed for the next day's celebration of a friend's birthday: she does it with care and concern.) Maybe the point is that if you care about how you look on the outside, you are more likely to bring your inner self up to speed as well. There may be a synergy between the two.






I eat breakfast in that grand room. Everything is good -- Patrizia's homemade yogurt, the cheeses, the sweet croissant (Italian's like their croissants sweet and onto this they'll add jam) -- all yummy. But if superb bread product is France's star attraction at breakfast, to me, the fruit is the standout here. The nectarine is so sweet and juicy that I cringe at the ones I'd been buying back home, where I sometimes hit on a good run of both nectarines and peaches, but more often I think of them as a waste of money. They're hard and tart and no amount of ripening on the counter helps.






I have about ninety minutes to walk the streets of Parma. I've sprinkled photos throughout the first part of the post. But here's another thought that demonstrates the downside of trying hard to look good: no one wears bicycle helmets. I realize that this is a European thing: if you ride a bike for sport, you protect your head, but not otherwise.

Having myself fallen off a bike going no more than five miles per hour in Madison (hitting the pavement with my helmeted head,) I frown at this, though I suppose that there are risks we take every time we step out of our home (and not only: many have fallen on the steep stairs of the farmhouse), nonetheless, I think it's such a small thing to don that helmet that it's worth the investment. Unless, I suppose, you worry what this will do to your appearance. Lord.






My morning stroll puts me in several bookstores (I was searching for a very specific book that I had found on Patrizia's shelf) and then also in a toy store. And what a toy store it is! Four huge rooms of remarkable, beautiful toys. (Here's just one room.)






(Speaking of Snowdrop, I greatly admire this little thing: I can just see her riding it on our after-school adventures.)






It takes me a long time to decide what to bring back for Snowdrop. In the end I pick a set that has a cardboard little girl and many felt outfits that you can place on her. There is something similar in the Fitchburg Library and I noted that it requires a certain amount of dexterity to get everything in place, so this isn't one of those "dress the Barbie" things. Too, the girl in my gift is very matter of fact, with practical clothes, ones I suppose you'd  wear here to play with a friend or to go shopping with your parent. (Which I am sure is not this little boy's agenda for today.)






Perhaps this is as close to a true Parma-themed toy as I can come up with. Dress with care, but, infusing an element of our own independence, don't fret about it. You can still improve your insides without worrying about the state of your clothes. Ask Ed.


And now it is time to catch the (late! why did I run to the station??)  train to Milan...






... past honey colored farmsteads and fields of golden sunflowers...







Milan: what can I say -- I do not love this city. I always have to stop here overnight on my way out because the flights home are just too early for travel from elsewhere. I've considered the city from all angles and though some facets are fine, interesting, spectacular even, if you're into design, especially but not only clothing design.

Still, most of it leaves me cold, even on a pretty day like today.

(I think many women here never put away their ironing boards. Ever.)


 


Perhaps because I am so indifferent to this city and perhaps because my expenses on this trip have been wonderfully low, I decided to splurge and pay for a hotel that even at hugely discounted advance purchase rates is more than I would usually spend. My thought was that I won't have to go out: I'll just stay in my room and admire it.

I walk to the hotel from the Stazione Centrale. Perhaps a stupid idea, given the heat and my backpack and suitcase, but still, I do like to walk.

(Here's a side of Milan that I've never seen...)






The walk takes me along Manzoni Street, where stores are beyond upscale -- they are the kind of places that never display price tags. (Even at 50% sales, I could not afford any of this stuff and even if I could, I would find no use for it. Nor would Snowdrop. Well, maybe she'd like the dressed teddy.)






Milan is big. People are stressed. I'm not in Parma anymore.






(I always found it mildly amusing that one of Milan's main attractions is this: the Gallerie Vittorio Emanuele II -- the world's oldest indoor shopping mall.)






And now I am at the Hotel Room Mate Guilia. Which in fact is very lovely.






And I guess because it's my first time here (I notice that hotels are especially generous to newcomers -- a bait for their future business), I get an upgrade, which is so unnecessary because I already feel like all this is incredibly lovely, even in its most basic incarnation, but hey, now I really do not have to leave! Ever.






Except that I do have to leave. I must time the walk from here to the city bus (I like it best for a connection to the Linate Airport) so that I do not mess up my departure tomorrow morning.

I have two comments: first of all, the square before the Cathedral (unquestionably the city's main attraction, but still...) is insanely crowded. I know it seems otherwise in this photo, but that's because I backed away from the church, in horror and trepidation. Too, the photo shows that I am still somewhat fascinated by people's use of bikes in urban settings.






(Here's a string of shoppers, all with giant white paper bags, coming from the Galleria. Mind you, this place is not really what you and I would call a mall anymore. The stores are over the top posh.These particular shoppers must be from Japan, because women from that country hate being exposed to the sun and these ladiesv are fleeing it quickly!)






Even more crowded (is that even possible?) is the boulevard (lined with popular stores) leading to my bus stop. Your head would spin, really.

My second comment is that sometimes I do do the correct thing. Checking the distance was just a precaution. I've walked that walk many times and can guess the minutes, and if I can't trust my memory, there is google to remind me. But I tested it. And it's a good thing, because the street where the bus stop stood for years and years, decades probably, is torn up and the line has been moved. I would have been in a pickle. And the very amusing detail is that it has been moved even closer to my hotel, so that tomorrow should be a breeze. Watch me eat my words.

Another small insert: I have come to dislike motorcycles since arriving in Milan. Oh, not because they threaten to run me down. They are no more aggressive than the cars and trams. It's a city -- survival of the fittest, no?

The problem for me is that it appears that motorcycles can park on sidewalks. Please do not remind me that I am thrilled with the fact that I can park Rosie on Madison's sidewalks. She is a moped. She is small. She is never blocking anyone's right to walk. I cannot tell you how hard it was to navigate squares packed with motorbikes, especially when I am towing a suitcase. (Maybe the rule here is that they can only park on sidewalks on squares?)

Here's a Milano view: interesting church, multiple motorcycles.






Let me end my run through Milan with a photo of the younger set that indeed may have a different perspective on the city.






Here's why: I ride in the elevator of my hotel and some guy is trying to pick up a woman and it really is amazing how much you can understand just from going from floor zero to floor one. She tells him -- I love Rome. She seems a little put off by Milan. I surely sympathize.  I'm about to smile in support of Rome over Milan (secretly -- I'm not going to jump into their romantic moment), but then I hear him say -- oh, but the clubs! They are the best in Milan! The best in all of Italy!

I get off. I'll grant you, the clubs may be great here. I wouldn't know -- I do not think that I have ever been to a club in my entire life.


I'm back in my beautiful little hotel. I place myself on a comfortable lobby chair and work hard to regain my composure after the hot loud crazy city walk. [And the desk staff teaches the very genial new employee from some very far away country how to make an Aperol Spritz for me, which is totally cool, mainly because I am certain that this new job is precious to the guy. Let me insert here a comment on the problem of immigration in Italy. Just two sentences, I promise! I was told in Parma that the refugees are a sad lot. They are given a handful of Euros and a pack of cigarettes each day and a smart phone to keep them busy. And they sit on the steps of the Cathedral or by the railway station and wait for the job that never comes.]

His Aperol spritz is superb (if excessively large), but then you could give me pretty much anything after that walk and I would be grateful.






And then I must go to dinner.

I had asked the hotel for a restaurant recommendation. I've eaten well in Milan, I've eaten poorly, I've eaten many meals that I do not remember. I'm sort of curious what these hip young people at the front desk were trained to recommend (and not fancy, I add, pointing to my sun dress -- this is as good as it's going to get!).

The young man asks about my food preferences (I have none except that they should not break the bank) then tells me --  try Il Solferino. It's a classic! They're just going to celebrate their 110th anniversary.

So I go to Il Solferino.

It's a pleasant walk through not an uninteresting part of town. The place is packed and I can understand why: the food is good, the waiters are phenomenal.  Too, they are your friends. I considered ordering (like yesterday) an appetizer, a pasta dish and a main (it's my last night!), but the waiter  said that was insane. He didn't actually use the word insane, but some such sounding descriptor. (I am very proud that I went through the whole meal using only Italian, so we may have passed each other by here and there, but I got the food and wine I wanted, paid my bill and left happy. What more could a person want?)

Would I recommend it? A resounding yes! Would I go back? Well, maybe. Probably. I think so... You see, I'm spoiled by Parma at the moment so I can't think straight. Small town cooking is really different in Italy than big city food. I am still in the smaller town mindset and anything prepared in Milan for a crowd, with two evening sittings, is going to be feel less personal.

(A very lovely spaghetti carbonara with sea food bits...)






I walk home musing about all this and other stuff. The restaurant borders on a cool neighborhood (in my view), and this in itself is eye-opening, since I have never ever felt that any Milanese neighborhood could be described as such, so there is hope. Perhaps we wont blow each other up in the near future after all. Hope is a good thing.






My last night in Milan, in Italy, in Europe. Such a grand trip! As always, so glad to be going home!

The moon shines brightly on Leonardo and us all tonight.





Tomorrow is a day of travel. My post here will be very very short and that's a good thing! YOU need a break from all my words and perhaps even more so from this flood of photos.

to the north, to the east

This weekend launches my third and last week of travels. The plan had been to give that over to France, but last minute changes mean that it will be split between France and Poland. And here's the curious thing: I was to stay for a week in a town that, on the surface at least is a poor match for me: it's rather touristy and it's in northern France, close to the border with Germany. And I will have to return sometime in the near future, because in changing my apartment rental there from one week to half a week, I could only get credit for the cancelled days. And I'm not going to let that go to waste!

So I have to like my destination. I'm set on it. Despite the peculiar misfit.

It's my biggest day of train travel yet and I'm glad, because I'm tired. I had fallen asleep last night while posting, leaving the lights on and the windows fully open. I woke up with a start some three hours into the night, finished my writing, turned off the lights and immediately heard the sound of a mosquito.

On went the lights. I chased it down. Out went the lights. Another buzz. There were five casualties by the time I was done. And jumping on furniture and waving a towel in the air has this way of waking me up, so that it was a long while before I returned to a sleepy state.

I mention this because I had been so set on loving this night in my not most favorite but still likable city. And of course, you can't ever predict how a night will go, how the weather would turn out, how your memories will be shaped in the end. (Mine of Milan will definitely include the park, the museum and the mosquito chase.)

Ah, but the weather continues to be my friend! A cornflower sky and a warm breeze outside -- an invitation to take a short walk before my 11:25 train. But first breakfast:





I steer more toward the healthy rather than interesting side of things. I need a break before my next series of morning indulgences.

Alright, the walk. Not long. You don't want quite the lead time for trains as you would for planes, but still, I can't push the clock on this one, because missing the train would trigger all sorts of unfortunate consequences -- missed further connections and inevitably another missed night at the rented apartment. And I don't think they'd be sympathetic to yet another cut back on my part.

So, a stroll, first without my suitcase, then with it. To enjoy a city that is as pleasantly surprised as I am with the continued good weather.




































And then a metro ride to Milano Centrale, where I catch my longest train of this trip -- to Basel, Switzerland, where I'll change to another train to Colmar, France, where I'm hoping not to miss the bus for Riquewihr.

Riquewihr. Not very French sounding, is it? It is in Alsace, which, in a way, is like the French version of the Alto Adige (my first days of this trip). It's on the wine route and the grapes grown here overlap somewhat with those of the Southern Tyrol. Alsace definitely feels like it's on a cultural crest -- on one side we have the French influence and on the other -- the historically charged impact of Germany. Alsace is where you'll find cooked sauerkraut with sausage on many a menu.

My hope is that I can return to some country hiking here. Even though my apartment -- the very lovely place called Fox and Grapes, managed by a guy who really knows what he's doing -- is smack in the ramparts of the town, the country trails look close by.

And of course, there are the vineyards to admire (more vineyards for you to look at!), this time taking on the more golden colors of fall.

That is the plan.

As for the train rides? It was a beautiful day to cross the Italian and Swiss Alps! You'll have to put up with a few photos. They are records of how glorious Fall has been this year.



(still in Italy)





(during the long tunnel crossing)





(now Switzerland)





(one more in Switzerland)

The timing worked perfectly. Like Swiss clockwork! My last train pulled into Colmar at 17:05, my bus was there, and I hopped on as it left at 17:10. By 6 p.m., I am in my new home.

And it is a charmer!






If Eduardo in Tuscany was lackadaisical in his preparations for guests, my new host, Jean-Paul (who works through an assistant -- Valerie -- so I know him only through correspondence) is so organized, so detail oriented, that the unit has to rank as probably at the very top of any rental I have ever taken on overseas.






...With expansive views toward the vineyards.



(from my windows)


It is absolutely lovely and very perfect for a solo traveler. (Cheerful! Not dark! Meaning bright! Quiet, but near the center of things! Did I mention bright and cheerful? These things matter especially when you are alone.)

I quickly dash out to stock up on essentials for the weekend. Silly me. I notice that every food shop is going to be open on Sunday. I'm in France. (It's Mondays that you have to worry about here.)

I eat at "Au Dolder." I opt for the three course set menu. Pate (to die for!). Fish in Reisling sauce (to die for!) and a baked ice cream Kugelhopf  (to die for)!





I have four comments and then I'm done. Promise.

First, if you ever find yourself in a town or village that's been discovered, with throngs of happy visitors now taking over, remember the upside: visitors inevitably will raise the level of services in the town and villages  that now have a bigger and more demanding client base. Which is a good thing. A village like Riquewihr surely would not have the variety of eating venues, shops, the detailed information on walks, hikes -- the list is long! -- were it not for the tourists. (It also has a bit more of the schlock, but you can ignore that. Like spam that you automatically delete without opening.)

Secondly -- tourism in these small villages is a day thing. When I arrived, the main street was agog with (mostly German speaking) people. There were buses just outside the city walls. The visitors eat here, shop here and do lots of wine tastings -- all during the day. By evening the main street looked like this:


 


Every last diner at the "Dolder" was French speaking. It's Saturday. French people like to eat out even more than we do (by contrast, Poles are only in the last handful of years taking their meals outside the home). They come in from the surrounding towns and villages to a place like Riquewihr (which itself has a population of only 1300)  to eat.

My third comment is one that is now old news, but bears repeating (and it will take a bunch of words to fully illustrate it, so be forewarned): you can never really appreciate cultural differences until you witness them time and again. Roger Cohen wrote about this just a few days ago in the NYTimes ("Truths of a French Village," you can read it here) and I had yet another example of how different we really are as I sat waiting for my dinner. At the table just two away from me sat a mother with her two young children -- I'm guessing the boy was 6 or 7 and the girl was 4 -- at most 5. It was 8 p.m., they had had their meal served already. Perhaps you know where this is heading. But let me give the full benefit of the details:

Needless to say, they did not stand out. They were using their "restaurant voices." It wasn't an effort. The mother never once said "sh!" -- they knew what was expected. (By contrast, on the train to Basel, I had an eight year old Swiss boy in the train car and I was thrilled when he got off. The noise level with him there was amazing, despite the mom's constant prodding to take it down a notch.) 

The little girl still had most of her food on her plate. It looked to me like fish -- I know, because that's what I ordered and hers looked the same. The mom was done, the boy was almost done. The girl was eating, but she was eating very slowly. At one point her mom leaned over, tasted a bite of the girl's food and made some small remark and then went about her business -- which was explaining something to the boy about her iPhone. The girl kept on eating.

Then the mother ordered an iced coffee for herself with tons of whipped cream. The whole concoction looked like one big ice cream soda. The boy asked -- is that coffee? She said yes and proceeded to eat/drink it. The boy and girl knew that it was hers -- an adult treat. They ignored it. The girl kept on eating her fish, the boy asked questions about the iPhone.





So in case you missed the subtlety here - the mom is downing a whipped cream special, the boy is ignoring it, the girls is chewing away at her fish without a comment.

The mother, done with her meal, gets up to settle the account. The boy starts to follow. The girl is almost done, but not quite done. The mom says briefly -- stay with your sister. The boy dutifully stands by the table keeping watch over this little girl.

Mom is back, sits down for a minute, the girl is finally done. You know what she is allowed to do now? Drink her Coca Cola, which she does, with relish, like it's the biggest dessert on the planet. And they leave.

Now, you could say that this was just a well trained little unit. Except that at the table next to theirs, the scene was repeating itself, only with a family of four, with two slightly older boys.

What strikes me as noteworthy is how easy it is to parent certain values in your kid if the whole culture supports a set of imperatives. The mom didn't do this on her own. The kids are used to good social behavior because they learned it in school, with friends, at family gatherings. She is just the maraschino cherry on their path in life. Much of the socialization of children takes place in schools and day care centers here, starting with infancy, where good manners, especially table manners are taught as assiduously as nursery rhymes and letters of the alphabet.

So my third point here tonight is this: it is far far easier to be a parent in France than in the United States. The institutional-cultural support for making the job less of a strain on especially the mom is incredible. You want to teach your kids to be pleasant eating companions and to have good table manners and eating habits at home? I did. It was important to me. But my oh my, you are on your own if you choose that trail and a thousand prickly branches and grizzly beasts will get in your way! You're bucking the cultural tide! For so many reasons (family leave, or lack thereof, remains at the top of my list), it's rough being a parent in America.

Final point: the food at the restaurant was superb! I had forgotten how very special a dinner in a French village can be. I had also forgotten how sleepy I get after a big meal late at night. You'll notice my writing is coming at a later hour -- middle of the night for me! I am readjusting: I cross a border or two, I rent a different apartment and my day is completely flipped. Ah, the incredible beauty of travel!