Our first exposure to Italy came at the beginning of our trip. We flew through Milan. Cruising on the people mover toward immigration, I saw something funny. Two businessmen were chatting and one of them put down his briefcase so he could talk ;-)
People really do talk with their hands in Italy. At least, when they have something important to say they do.
Italian gives you something to work with. It gives you words like frizzante.
Is that for real? People say frizzante and don't even crack a smile. In English we don't even have one word like frizzante. Italian is loaded with fun words. In fact (I'm going to get nailed for this), it almost sounds like a made-up language. It's like someone started out speaking Spanish, and thought, "This is too dry. Too subdued. There's not enough...flair."
We practiced saying frizzante a lot. It wasn't just sparkling water that was frizzante. Anything vibrant was fair game. Like this donkey above. I wouldn't even have noticed these guys except that I heard one of the strangest noises...like a cross between a whinny and a squeak toy. Well, let's just say that they donkeys were...uh...getting a little frizzante in the field.
Italian stallion. Tee hee ;-)
Sorry. I think maybe, because I'm 1/4 Italian myself I can get away with goofing on Italy. But really, how Italian am I? At the train station in Milan, a guy unapologetically pushed his way in front of me in line, and then pulled a sucker move pretending he'd knocked his change under the cash register (he didn't have enough money for his drink).
Did the presence of nuns cruising through the station deter this guy's dishonesty? No... I was incensed! "That guy's such a liar," I said to the cashier. The cashier just shrugged his shoulders like "whatever." Whatever?
Well, clearly, the food part of my Italian nature is intact. I like the food culture in Italy (you can't see it, but I'm waving my hands).
When we arrived in Lake Como, we stopped for groceries at a little store called Dino Market in the town of Lenno. Light years away from the kind of corner store you might find in say...New York or SF even.
Walking into Dino Market was like walking into your grandmother's tidy, well-organized kitchen. A grocery is a serious thing here. The people behind the counter with the beautiful cheeses and fresh pasta are important people. And when you're in their store, they take care of you. You don't walk in and grab some tomatoes...actually, you don't even walk in and look at the tomatoes. It is a major faux pas to touch the produce. They fetch the tomatoes for you, after advising you what the different tomatoes are like. When they have discussed and selected your items for you, they check you out, hand you your bags, and say goodbye...as if this had been a meaningful interaction.
It's kind of intense. But you get really good stuff. Like the wonderful creamy cheese pictured above. Or this excellent butter (the package was sealed with grommets!).
Or these sunshine-in-a-shell eggs. I practically cried they were so beautiful.
And while we mourned the loss of our morning baguettes and puzzled at the dry, fluffy Italian bread...the focaccia, oh my goodness. Chewy, crunchy-salty, olive-oil-buttery, leaving us with greasy paws. This is from a chain bakery in Menaggio called Il Fornaio. Crazy thing...this looks like the same Il Fornaio I grew up with in the Bay Area! Only I don't remember the focaccia being quite this good.
I don't know if we lucked out, or if it's usual to equip kitchens this well...but our flat's kitchen in Menaggio was fantastic. Besides having sharp Henckels knives and every imaginable kitchen tool, the kitchen was really intelligently laid-out.
One thing I really liked was the hidden drying racks above the sink for putting hand-wash items that didn't fit into the (elegantly hidden) dishwasher.
There was also a super garbage-and-recycling system under the sink. Do you see how there are two drawers? And you can keep your dish soap and scrubbies in the top drawer, but still access the lower garbage drawer through the cutout without opening it too? Great design!
Ok, so here I am raving about the kitchen in this flat. The whole point of this flat was not what was inside. It was this...
This was my first experience of Alpenglow. Absolutely awesomely gorgeous.
Which is not to say this view wasn't exquisite at other times of day...
Occasionally the neighbor's boxer with the rubber chicken would snap me out of the rapture...
Or maybe it was his owner's strong Dutch voice singing "I was right and you were wrong...doo-da, doo-da," to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
That's just what traveling is like. It's weird sometimes. Like when we were training out of Italy and suddenly were told that everyone was getting on a bus to the next station (with our five suitcases). And then, packed cheek by jowel in the bus, riding through the Dolomites, we found ourselves listening to...Reggae Nights. Yeah, those flower boxes really remind me of Jimmy Cliff. E too. He's jammin' over there in seat 3B.
Part of what makes things a little bit weird here is that the beauty is so intense. So things that are ordinary or odd can be shocking.
Riding the open-deck ferry to Bellagio, I was lulled into a kind of bliss, feeling like I had stepped into a painting...
But then, when I got there, it appeared that a boatload of other tourists had stepped into that painting with me and were trodding heavily over the beautiful flowery walkways and jockeying for benches from which to bliss out.
Or a friend asked me, "Don't you remember the marriage scene in Star Wars where they're standing in a villa on the edge of a lake?" And I think, yeah, that's where E goes to the gym.
How can you go to the gym in a place like that?
But people are leading ordinary lives here. One afternoon, hoofing it from the only parking place I could find one town over, I came across...rock climbers.
And blackberries. Good Lord, this feels like the Pacific Northwest (a place I have been avoiding like the plague since escaping its soggy skies fifteen years ago).
Actually, Menaggio is a hiker's paradise. And there are pathways snaking all through the town and up into the hills. There's even a serious hike where you have to hold into chains to reach the Refugio Menaggio. Since we are not members of the Club Alpino Italiano, we didn't attempt that one.
But we did enjoy some more leisurely strolls up paved pathways, in and out of farmland, with (of course) phenomenal views...
Until we came across a slightly jarring sign: "Cardano Nuclear Storage." I am kicking myself for not taking a picture because I can't find any mention of it in English or Italian online. Strange thing was...I'd just finished a mystery novel set in Venice called Death in a Strange Country, where nuclear waste was at the heart of the mystery.
Well, so that's life. This place that is like a dream for us is part of a living, breathing Italy.
That said, wandering through the neighborhoods, I did have some charming experiences like receiving a cat escort up to a pretty church, that had the most beautiful handmade lace...
This was something that left a real impression on me. This lace in Menaggio was a reminder that the larger town of Como at the base of the lake is a textile -- and specifically silk -- manufacturing center.
When I went to Como itself, window-shopping (gelato in hand), was a real pleasure. After months of browsing past chain stores in HK, Spain, and France, I found myself gazing on these beautiful necklaces at a shop called Benzoni.
Do you see, in the topmost necklace, with the gray-green ribbon, that's a piece of gray-green granite at the center? That's so cool. And a reminder that we were just an hour from Milan, where inspiration for much of the frizzante throughout the world originates.
Passing through Milan's central station on the way out, I got another taste of the aesthetic yumminess that I imagine permeates the city -- in this art deco mosaic.
While I might not be all Italian, I would love to come back to Milan for more of this...
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