Vicenza to Milan

It is with some personal regret that we have left Venice and we are moving west across the top of the boot. Next stop for the night is Vicenza, of interest because it is a city of the Venetians although there is nothing obvious on that front. If I remember rightly it was part of the islands supply chain….

but we did stumble into a David Chipperfield Architectural Exhibition, presented in the local Duomo…

Quite an impressive portfolio of many architects works from around the world. I must make mention here that we did attempt to visit the Architectural Biennial in Venice, a huge international event but were locked out cos it was Monday…

and they clearly can’t afford quality signage.

Vicenza was really just a stopover on our way to Milan but we’ve started to bump into Italys holiday period – so much stuff is closed and it is getting difficult to find accommodation and meals. Having to book ahead has accelerated our itinerary somewhat and we’re not getting much time in any one place although most of what is on offer is either another church, a Doges palace or some form of historical architecture, repeating much of what we’ve already seen.

Vicenza is quite a picturesque town with a stunning piazza as the above will show but by and large it is equivalent to many other small towns we have so far passed through. We’re on our way to Milano, a two nighter so we can see a bit of what the city has to offer during the day. What we in fact found was a city in shutdown. It seems the whole place has gone on holiday. Even the hotel we’re in is closing the morning we leave for a 10 day break. Went searching for restaurants and found nothing open. Drove around town on the afternoon we arrived and even the traffic was light. With nothing but some more churches to see we decided to head to Como on our one day here.

We’d heard of Como, Lake Como as being a favourite spot for the rich and famous so we thought we could just blend in. We did. Every other person or car on the road was another one of us – gawking tourists looking to blend in with the rich and famous, none of whom we saw (well I don’t think so but maybe they were Italian rich and famous). It is however another picturesque spot….

Parking was impossible. The roads around Como are so narrow there is little passing room, let alone parking space so we headed out of town a little to Taverna for lunch and then decided we were so close to the Swiss border it would be madness to not cross over. So, following a line of traffic we eventually crossed into Switzerland. There was no fanfare, no fireworks so thinking this is just another EU country we get lost in the village of Chiasso then eventually find our way back to the Italian border to find the border CLOSED. Swiss border guard says “do you have any money?” I say “bullshit I’m not gunna pay bribes here” to which he says “pull over there”. Uh Oh! Jude says “shut up you’ll get us jailed , how much do they want?”. We park, border guard  man says ” did you buy anything?” No says I, forgetting the fuel we bought. “Ok” says border guard man “open boot”. He then rifles through Judes undies and says “OK you can go” I don’t know about border guard man but I got a bit of a chill. Jude just got angry with me.

OK so after brush with border control at which I’m always pretty bad we head back to Milan(o). Everything is still shut down – we walk the streets looking for a better meal deal than the hotel offers only to find that the city is still shut down. Back to the hotel for another over the top dinner.

Then its on to Genoa (Genova). This is a port city – there is a fair bit to see. Again we’ve got two nights one day in which to explore the town. I think I’ve mentioned that we don’t take the tollways but rather the back roads so we get to see the country so the trip of just 180km from Milan to Genoa takes several hours. We pass through villages where the buildings close in on the road leaving a one lane width around blind corners. Oh, this is fun! By the time we hit Genoa I’m knackered. Judes been reading the corners like a rally navigator from the sat-nav but this doesn’t tell us where the blind spots are so its a case of ‘approach a corner and try to see around it’, but we did see some fantastic countryside…

All of these villages clinging to mountainsides begs the question – “what do people do?”. One thing in the above photos is a granite quarry – perhaps everyone here about mines, processes, sells granite. Dunno! But every building is similar, seemingly little room for individualism, a bit like all of the UK villages we went through. Anyway we finally made Genoa(Genova) and the sat-nav, cunningly programmed to the hotel postcode took us everywhere but our hotel. I don’t want to remember how many times we went around the same block probably in the wrong direction once or twice asking so many people including the caribinieri how to find this hotel. In desperation I used the phone directions to nearly get us there until we eventually spotted the name of the hotel from a distance – the sat-nav wasn’t even close. But we did see a lot of one small part of Genova.

We check out hotel restaurant prices and decide out looks like best option. At 6.30 pm we head out to nearby restaurant and are told “come back in an hour or so when we are open”. Well, stuff them – I want to eat now! So off into the city we walk. Same story – no eaty till 7.30 or so, so by the time we take this all in its 7.30 so we go back to first place near the hotel and manage to get a seat. At least the meal was good. I actually decide that Italians could be a bit more civilised than I perhaps had previously given credit.

Genova is an historical city and in many ways quite beautiful but the next instalment will perhaps illustrate. We’re now in Siena and have just met a bunch of Aussies from Tas. so its drinkies time and I can’t finish this entry. Genoa continues soon.