The coffin was at least ten feet tall and before it knelt a wimpled woman sombrely lighting a candle. The crowd around us began to move with the pounding of a brass band and the air soon grew warm with the moving bodies and the fragrant clouds of hashish smoke. 'What is going on?' you may well cry. If you're lucky I may let you know in a paragraph or two. Then again I might get carried away, completely forget and you'll be forever in the dark. Whatever the case we must first go back to our farm in the distant, misty hills...
Following the events of my last missive we spent another week or two in the hills of northern Italy, counting goats and wishing away the mist that had engulfed the valley. Outside the farmhouse windows only a few hazy metres were visible so we holed-up, built fires and baked bread. Luckily, we also had a couple of very welcome visits from folks back home. It wasn't that Nic and I had become entirely bored of each others' company but I had noticed her eying up the wood chopping axe with a rather evil glint in her eye and I can't deny that an over-baked focaccia hadn't struck me as a rather effective bludgeon. Anyway, one of the reasons for this chapter of our trip was to give us a taste of country life and help us decide if we might one day flee to a leafy idyll of our own. On one of our last nights among those dripping trees and muddy paths we felt like we were much closer to an answer and it wasn't an answer we had particularly expected. We needed a city. We wanted a city and a gallery and a cinema and a shop and a pub and people and life and energy and music and markets and bustle and buildings and art and bohemianism and a complete and utter lack of goats.
So with mud still dropping from our boots and labrador hair still matted in our clothes we hit the glittering streets of Milan. Past Gucci handbags, handmade brogues and newly-engineered faces we pushed our way into a gloriously decadent shopping arcade. I like to think we cut our own dash in our Indian trousers, lost luggage jumpers and practical raincoats and I've no doubt a few high-fashion heads must have been turned by this fresh new style. We met our friend Claudia for drinks and woke up the next morning with the pleasant feeling of being on an unknown floor in an unknown room, back on the road again.
Bidding farewell to the lovely Claudia (pronounced the English 'Claw-Deer') we ran the rails to Turin to meet another and equally lovely Claudia (this time pronounced 'Cloudier' in the Italian fashion) who we had met on the banks of the Ganges a lifetime ago (i.e. in August). She inducted us into her rather wonderful city, its beautiful streets, wintry hills and pleasantly bohemian air. We spent a lovely couple of nights eating with borrowed friends, drinking into the night at pavement bars and walking the streets through air perfumed with chocolate, wine and hot pizza. Turin was certainly beautiful but, on top of that, and unlike many of Italy's tourist cities, it felt real.
It was in Turin that we witnessed the bizarre funeral described in the first paragraph. It was not in fact a funeral for a person but for a nightspot. Alongside Turin's Po River there is a whole strip of bars and clubs that have been serving Turinese party-goers and squatters for decades. In the last couple of weeks the council decided to close it all down on the grounds of health and safety. The 'funeral' took place outside the council offices and was a strangely joyous protest against this decision. It struck me as a very European scene - on the one hand a source of joy was being stupidly crushed in the name of health and safety but on the other it showed our sense of freedom and willingness to argue our corner, to stick our fingers up to the powers that be. 'It is so good to be back in Europe' said Nic, though whether she meant the protest or the chocolate shop around the corner I can't be sure.
With new friends in Turin
After such Claudia-based fun, we headed to Venice where there were no Claudias to be found but instead a big old city unfeasibly built on a lagoon. Arriving by train over the misty waters and emerging to see gondolas ripple the canals was rather wonderful and it is an undeniably beautiful and quite unbelievable city. It also seemed an appropriate destination being home to that other Silk Road traveller, Marco Polo (the copier). However, it did feel like Venice's true soul had long since been strip-mined by tourists greedily prospecting for romance. I would still recommend anyone to go as it is still utterly unique but, if you want an Italian city with soul, Turin is the place for me.
So, as we find ourselves back on the road with city maps and train tickets clogging our pockets, we look east once more. In fact, we've already crossed into a new land. But that'll have to wait for next time for we must return to our cell. We're currently in a prison. But, as I said, that'll just have to wait.
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