Impressions: Bergamo

We've gone native. Instead of a sequestered hotel with maid service and concierge support, we've rented an apartment in the lower city (bassa citia) of Bergamo.  Faced with the reality  of no breakfast as part of the deal, we found the grocery store (billa) and picked our way among the familar yet unfamiliar aisles of products.  Try to find skim milk in Italian.  Luckily the tomatoes and eggs look like tomatoes and eggs.  However, they do not refrigerate eggs.

A big advantage of an apartment (Italians have not yet discovered the affordable Embassy Suites) is that you have lots of room to spread out.  We've strewn clothes and stuff all over the place without having to fill up the bed.  And, we eat breakfast in, brew coffee and tea, keep in touch via wifi,  and generally make ourselves at home.  The down side is that the studio is a renovated attic, four floors up from the street with only a tiny lift covering two of the floors.  The decor is ikea, young guy black and white modern sprinkled with an old wood chest, antique wash stand and hand carved doors to the bath.  It's clean, but like any young man's place, it is missing finishes and good reading light.  The TV is completely Italian.  The parking two blocks away in a centro underground parking lot.  We are making do and proving that living "Italian" is not as romatic as imagined.

Bergamo is a mid-size city, kind of like Baltimore without an inner harbour.  The upper city is accessed via funicolare or many steep cobblestone stairs.  There the buildings date back into the 10th -13th century. New buildings are 17-18th century.  We did our fill of tourists and catherdrals -- all quite maginificant -- a testament to the Catholic Church's role in keeping the economy alive for so many centuries.  There isn't a piece of sandstone or marble that is not carved or polished in some manner.

Food is bi-polar -- Italian pastas with Swiss meats and sauces.  Didn't know if I should yodel and just say "Grazie" at the end of the meal.  As long as you wash it down with the inexpensive but surprisingly good local white wine, all is well.

Impressions: Como

Saturday. Sunny day. We drive to Como, one of the most dense resort towns in Italy tucked into the crevices of mountains swooping down into the lake.  Insane. What were we thinking?  A leisurely lunch on the lake?  Impossible.

It was easy to escape.  Just follow the signs to Bergamo-Lecco SS342.  Almost two hours later and too many round abouts across the foothills, we arrive Bergamo, tired and hungry.

Impressions: Lake Orta San Giulio

If there is a heaven, then San Giulio could be what it is like.  The lake is nestled in the Italian mountains north west of Milan about one hour if you can follow directions.  We took a left when we should have taken a right on the A8 so we had to back track on local roads after stopping to ask directions.  An adventure as always as John drives the manual shift car and I navigate.

Our hotel is at the bottom of the San Giulio town square.  It overlooks the lake and the historic island on which nuns are cloistered in the Basilica.  We must park the car up in a lot outside the square.  Cars are not allowed except for residents and "drop off" like ourselves.  The streets are cobblestone  lined with the building walls that are full of scrapes.  I know it is like heaven for the following reasons:

• Four languages are spoken - Italian, English, French and German - without disdain by the locals.
• Out of our hotel room between our toes, we see mountains, the clear blue Orta lake and the Basilica isle overwhelmed with ancient structures that are now modern homes.  It is all reminiscent of Venice where the houses and water meet.
• In the center of the San Giulio peninsula is a mountain atop which, after a one hour completely 15 degree uphill walk is a world heritage site of 20 chapels built between 1597 and 1660.  Each has a piece of St. Francis' life depicted in statuary and  trompe l'oeil painted walls.  If I were Catholic I would have been on pilgrimage.
• The morning is crisp--easy for walking.  The afternoon - sunny and breezy ready for a cruiser ride across the lake to the isle.  The evening is cool again, ready for sitting out with a sweater to gaze at the mountains as the sun sets in the west and play rummy 500 while we drink our newest find -- blueberry grappa.
• The food makes you forget American cuisine -- we just finished lunch -- light tagliatelli with fresh slices of black truffles and a veal chop flattened "elephant ear style" so tender than it melted in my mouth.  This was preceded  a sea bass capriccio served with fresh peaches set in a bit on ever so fine olive oil.
• The local white wine is crisp, creamy yet dry if a bit tart.  It is also less than 15 euros a bottle in the restaurants.
• The streets are narrow, ancient, built into the mountain and speckled with shops and restaurants tucked into the stone and brick buildings.
• You can walk the perimeter of the peninsula after dinner on a stone walk that wraps the land.  If you stay out too lake, lamp post lights brightened the path so you do not mistakenly fall into the lake.

Yes, this could be what heaven is like, except we do have to pay for our Internet connection and sit in the hotel lobby to access it.  Maybe this is a good thing.  Ciao!

Impressions: Milan

The first thing you have to get over in Milan is the graffiti.  It is everywhere on walls from the outer suburbs to the downtown, except the Duomo, the great cathedral at the center of the city.  The graffiti is multi-colored Italian. -- tags, sentences (must the university crowd), words urging action or just univeral foul language.

Milan is an old city but a beige city.  Not colorfully grand like Rome, Florence or Venice.  It's caught somewhere between boring chic and financial gritty.   Our hotel is chic modern planted in an industrial district that is rising out of the dust of car repair shops and small manufacturing businesses.  It's an urban frontier full of new office and residential construction.  The 30 minute tram ride to city center brushed us up against the everyday Milano, a reserved but helpful sort.  At our Santa Rosa stop, a retiree smiled and made sure we didn't get on the #9 train.  He just knew we needed the #12 train -- and we did.  We must look and smell like Americans :-)

Fashion is Milan's calling card. I know you've probably read about that, but seeing Milanos walk and bike through the narrow cobble streets makes it real.  Whether you're a student of the Academy in low cost duds or a woman of a certain age who shops at stores where blouses start way above what I paid for my last suit, Milanos know how to dress.  And, they are slender.  Even if you discount the numerous really, really thin models  strolling about in the markets, 90% of Milanos are slender.  But slender doesn't capture the aura you fell as someone walks by. A better word is streamlined that come s from the cut of the clothes, the fabric and the way it fits each body.  Our waitress at the small outdoor trattoria where we ate fresh pasta  had the aura and all she wore was a white and black uniform.  The men are stunning.  Even the plain faced, bald ones.  Everyone is clean shaven.  America does not have men who look so fine and so stunning without even trying.  All this is what we are not and makes me suck in my gut and hope for the best.

There are sights to see.  The Duomo cathedral is magnificent.  On the outside gargoyles stretch ominously over the sides, perched everywhere protecting the edifice.  We've seen many grand churches on our travels, but this one takes the cake, or should I say is the cake! It reminds me of the drip sand castles I used to build at the Jersey shore with my daughter.

La Scala is worth the walk up the street. The opera is not playing this week so we settled for a tour of the house and the museum.  Close your eyes and imagine a giant horse shoe of red velvet orchestra seats surrounded with five tiers of box seats and then two more tiers of standroom only.  The gold paint around the hall was subtle but visible.  In the center was the president's box heavily draped and low lighted with a height of three tiers.  Manifico!

Back to the future

Jeremy's been a freshman for a week now.  We're looking forward to his arrival for Sunday brunch in just about 90 minutes.  Last weekend his parents, brother and I  moved him into his dorm room at George Washington University.  Made me remember when my folks took me Lawrence in Appleton WI, a small town outpost and home city of the infamous Joe McCarthy. Jeremy didn't want that kind of isolation.  He wanted a city school with lots of kids from all over the world.  Smart kid!

The furniture was as I  remembered my first dorm room, only older and greatly more used - basic ash wood single bed, desk and chest, no drawer pulls. I shared a room with one other young woman.  He's sharing with four other guys.  It should be interesting to see if any of them sleep well. It's a diverse group - one Asian with high style clothes, one Pakistani with the manners of a well trained prince, one apparently normal guy from Cleveland, and one skinny dude from Syracuse NY who brought the TV (yes, they have cable TV as well as Wi-Fi in the dorm.  Rounding out the gang is Jeremy, the quiet one from New Jersey.  They are all starting out as business majors, so I'm not sure just if they're really diverse.

The dorm building is old, but that's what he wanted.  He's on the 8th floor (we climbed the stairs three times because the lines for the tiny elevators was so long).  The parquet floors must have ten coats of varnish on them.  The walls are institutional beige, some smooth and some the remnants of original plaster walls.  There's a white fridge, insufficient ceiling lights, one bathroom with a door that doesn't shut real well, one huge and one small closet, but no cooking facilities. If you lay on Jeremy's bed and look out the niche window to the left there's a long view of the Potomac river south toward the airport. Makes you feel you are in the heart of something special!

He's happy.  It's a big step.  We're feeling old.   It was 1966 when I was a freshman, still a virgin and hankering to let loose. I shake my head in amazement that I survived it all.  I hope Jeremy not only survives, but thrives.  He's a good kid who is not afraid to make tough decisions.