The Italian Job: Milan

Driving into the outskirts of Milan was a bit of a shock after the relative peace of the mountains of France.  Traffic veered wildly from left to right and even Garmin, our sat nav, seemed to be taken by surprise.  Her very British accent seemed at odds with the long road names and often she gabbled incoherently like a woman in her cups. However soon we found the locality of our next hotel, which was situated in a suburb of Milan called Novate Milanese – a very Italian village scattered with cafes, gellatorias, old ladies in black seated on foldaway chairs outside in the street, a newsagents and not one hotel in sight.  Garmin announced that we were here.  We looked incredulously around us. There was nothing but traditional ancient townhouses, and certainly none with car parks. 

G wandered aimlessly up and down the road, trying to find our hotel Antica Corte Milanese by tracking the numbers.  I went into the newsagents, and he directed me to where G was standing in front of an enormous arch with double wooden doors.  I buzzed tentatively on the bell that was scrappily labelled with the name of our abode.  The doors swung open to reveal a wonderfully cobbled courtyard, surrounded with balconied apartments covered in white flowering heavily scented passion vines, large pink unidentifiable blooms and in the top corner of the balcony white linen curtains flapped gently in the breeze round a sun terrace.

A young man who could only have been a few years older than Eldest Son appeared and announced himself as Lorenzo.  He was extremely helpful, and was eager to practice his English on us, which was a good thing as none of us speak Italian, and there was a complicated system of keys and machines to be explained.  The boys soon disappeared into Dalia, our delightful three storey apartment complete with secret attic bathroom which Little Man claimed for his own. Lorenzo patiently explained all the intricacies of living in a converted 17^th century building – the light switches were all in odd places, the clay brick floor creaked, the main bathroom had a tiled floor and a bidet, and the stairs were precariously steep. Breakfast, which was included in the price, was through a vending machine, on a prepaid key.  We looked at the empty machine, which apparently served both hot beverages and packets of pastries and made a mental note that we would probably skip breakfast in favour of the many pastry shops we had seen en route. He then led G and I through a series of maps, and drew out laboriously our train route into Milan, and back, and gave us pointers to restaurants. We instinctively knew that we would enjoy our stay in Milan.

the gorgeous Corte Antica

That night the street was thrown open to a Festa, or street party.  We ate at a pizza restaurant called Volpe to the strains of a jazz band that had set up on one end of the street by a bouncy castle and a bustling café. Our antipasti arrived, mountains of mussels, prawns, clams and razor clams, fresh thin slices of smoky breseola, peppery rocket and creamy buffalo mozzarella. All this before our pizzas, and sloshed down with a lovely bottle of Italian red. We ambled back through the crowds - couples wheeled buggies, young men swaggered past giggling teenage girls in teeny shorts and iPods, and old men laughed over glasses of beer, gesticulating wildly with cigarettes.

Exhausted, we all fell into bed, the faint sounds of the street music in our ears.  The next day, G went down the stairs to see what he could hunt down for breakfast, only to find Lorenzo disconsolately mopping up in the breakfast room.  It seemed that the vending machines had given up the ghost and flooded the floors overnight…

G came back with 3 Elvises and 2 Sophia Lorens.  These were hot paninis made by a local who not only dressed like Elvis, but named his fodder accordingly.  They were delicious and differed only in that the Elvises had salami and the Sophias were slightly less fatty with parma ham.

Fortified thus, we set off for the railway station clutching Lorenzo’s map.  It was a five minute walk and we found it with no trouble at all.  I must stop here for a moment and talk about language.  None of us can speak French or Italian, and one thing that I have found so far with booking slightly out of town is that not a lot of people speak English.  So G, armed with a phrase book, attempted to talk to the woman behind the counter.  Now although I cannot speak Italian, my deceased grandmother, an uneducated woman, could speak 7 languages and write not a jot.  Something has rubbed off on me, because I can understand a lot more than I can speak. 

On their first double decker train

Sensing that I understood her, the woman turned to me in despair, and began rattling off staccato style.  I am proud to say that I managed to get a free pass for all public transport in Milan for all of the kids, and an adult return to the station.  She then ran on to the platform where we were waiting and proceeded to chat on about all the things she had forgotten to tell me – where we should get off, what we should do etc.  Maybe it was only because I was the ‘Madre’, but I noticed G had put away his phrase book and slunk off to look at the train timetable as the boys sniggered.

Feeding the pigeons outside the Duomo

The Duomo

a fortifying gelato

Milan, home of fashion and the beautiful people.  The boys looked in awe at the expensive shops and Middle Son declared his ambition to one day own a Gucci suit.  The superb Duomo, towering above a Piazza in which the kids fed the birds courtesy of some Senegalese hustlers (hmm…5 euros later we learned our lesson, and so did the kids – shouting NO! whenever any approached us). The lovely women with endless legs and swinging little expensive bags, the men, no matter what age, exquisitely dressed in a panacea of colours.  But the unexpected hit of the day was the Leonardo 3 exhibition.  Covering all aspects of Leonardo da Vinci’s life including his inventions and his art, meant that all of us had something to look at.  The boys were fascinated by the model flying machines, time and motion, and invented their own land and air machines with print outs. Always an amateur conspiracy theorist,  I spent ages reading all the 3D computerized info on the Last Supper and was shaken out of my reverie by the boys. Little Man declared that he wanted to be an actor and an inventor.

the biggest billboard in the world - and aspiring models...

We got back in the evening exhausted.  G went to sleep. I was packing up and checking through the stuff for Verona, our stop the next day. The boys were debating what the bidet was.  Eldest Son thought it was a bath for toddlers, Little Man thought it was for washing your feet.  Middle Son, who is a bit more savvy, told them that it was for washing your butt.  The other two looked up in incredulity as he described what to do.

And then they tried it out to much hilarity.

Milan, here bidet, gone tomorrow

…

The Italian Job: Dijon

There’s no doubt about it, travelling this way is tiring.  And we suffered for it the next day, with the boys surfacing at around 10.00am – unheard of at home.  And so consequently we missed breakfast, which was not included in the room fee, and so we entered Dijon absolutely famished and heading for the first car park that we could find.  There was a scraping noise as the car went down a steep ramp to the underground parking that was Parking Darcy.  G looked a bit concerned, whilst the rest of us concentrated on finding a space in the packed car park.  As we got out of the car, the boys all knelt, peering into the darkness under the vehicle.  There was a piece of the undercarriage hanging low, through which flowed a liquid on to the concrete floor.

Pandemonium and panic ensued.  G panicked that it was terminal, the boys panicked that the car was falling apart. I wandered how on earth we were going to eat.  I don’t profess to know much about cars, but having been brought up in Africa, where pretty much any vehicle is held together on a wing and a prayer, I was not unduly concerned.  I suggested that G put his finger in the puddle and look and sniff.  It wasn’t oil, diesel or brake fluid.  It was water.  It made sense that because it was so hot, the air conditioning had been working overtime.  And on that diagnosis, the pouring liquid stopped abruptly.

We had a Lonely Planet and some advice from the internet. Of course Dijon is famous for its mustard, and we were sad to see that the mustard factory tour had closed down – we had no idea why. We decided that the Owl Tour seemed to fit our style of ambling around, with the benefit of being free (with the exception of 2.50ϵ for the guide book from the Tourist Information Centre). 

The Owl is a lucky symbol in Dijon, and built into the pavements are tiny brass owls which one follows, and which point out the places of interest. The tour itself takes about an hour to do, unless you are us, and meander up and down, in and out of mustard shops and little interesting side streets. 

The owl symbols in the tarmac that the boys ran ahead to spot

The boys were on the hunt for food, and soon we came across the Maison Millière, a house steeped in history and built in 1483 – and now a renowned restaurant. We went in, were seated by a young man who spoke fluent English and who nevertheless understood our attempts at French.  We decided on the Menu du jour, and Little Man’s children’s menu was served at the same time as our entrees, and he had his dessert when we had our mains.  The restaurant itself was set outside in a quaint old courtyard, replete with elegant French women sipping glasses of crisp white wine and with wall paintings of the French countryside which would have done a Hollywood set painter proud.

Maison Milliere with its painted walls

Mustard mustard everywhere

So well fed and watered, we ambled through some of the finest architecture that we have seen, and taking in some fine sights such as the Hotel de Vogue, Jardin Darcy, the Palais de Justice and the cathedral at Saint- Bénigne.  It was very hot, and several stops were required to stock up on l’eau and les glaces. The boys were delighted to reach the Palais des Ducs et des Etats de Bourgogne.  This was not because of the enormous tower of Philippe Le Bon which stood at 46m above the town, or the Palais des Etats with its host of red white and blue flags and the proud words Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité above the enormous door.  No, it was the Place de la Libération with its three linear ground level fountain displays, amongst which the local kids ran squealing and shrieking in the sunshine.

Fun in the sun

Within no time, G and I watched as our kids joined in, forgetting their shyness as they joined in the splashing and shouting and getting totally drenched much to the amusement of the people in the nearby cafes.

Nodding Queen

Those who know me, or who are regular readers of the blog, will know that for a year or so I have been battling with an Achilles Tendon problem, and indeed, by the end of the day, my foot was tender and swollen and in need of icing.  Stopping off en route at a leClerc near the Hotel Armony, G used his initiative, and came back with a bag of frozen peas.  I would give any money to have seen the puzzled face of the chamber maid after we had checked out the next day…

Dinner that evening was in a family friendly French chain of restaurants known as Hippopotamus.  The boys were slightly disappointed that hippo was not on the menu, but they were delighted with their steaks, and I with my Hippopotamus Colada cocktail. Walking back across a dual carriageway proved an exciting end to the evening, and I was glad that I had only stuck to the one!

The next morning we were all up early enough to make check out.  We sat in the car and Garmin sprung into life.  She sounded perky as we typed in the address in Milan.  The boys settled down, and I got out the Italian phrase book.  As we whizzed along the toll roads with their magnificent mountain views and the glaciers of Mont Blanc, all we could hear were the kids rolling their ‘r’s and stressing their ‘e’s with Latin drama ‘Per favorrrrrre’ and ‘Grazieeee Milleeeee’.

9 or 10 tunnels, 15 bottles of water, 2 boxes of tracker bars, 1 bar of melted chocolate, 5 tangerines and 4 hours later we reached the border.

 

La famiglia Morrisoni had arrived in Italy.

The Italian Job: The Start

So this was it… suddenly the time had come for us to depart.  And for once in a long time I felt very unprepared.  It has been a bit of a thing, our holidays.  Most of our friends go all inclusive.  Or they try the cottages in Cornwall.  Every one of them proclaim that it is simply the best way to vacation- there’s so much to do, to see, to eat.  We’ve done Cornwall at Easter for years – it’s practically a tradition, sitting there on the beach at Perranporth in fleeces whilst kids and husbands, seemingly impervious to the weather, reenact Baywatch in various episodes with not one Hasselhof between them.  And our one experience of all inclusive certainly worked in terms of food –my hungry family ate whatever was offered whenever, but after about 5 days lounging by the pool, joining in the watersports and meeting lots of people, even the boys got a bit bored… whereas G and I had cabin fever. Our happiest days were spent hiring a car and enjoying the land around us – G loved the landscapes and we loved the shopping.

So, back to our kind of holidays.  Before Little Man had become a reality, but was an actuality in my swelling belly, we had taken a tour sans schedules or charters off the beaten track to a massive villa in Tuscany, where we invited the grandparents and had a lovely idyllic time. This spurred us on, two years later, to travel, with 3 children under 8, in a car to Spain, where we went to Paris (and Disneyland), Le Mans (where we mistakenly got on one of the perimeter race tracks in our Nissan Pathfinder and roofbox) Andorra, Grenada, Rosario (to visit friends who had just moved there) Al Hambra and Majorca (again to stay with friends but we seemed to cause a lot of attention with our GB plates). We saw fiestas, carnivals and lots of sights were well documented in our photo albums.  Two years ago we did a marathon tour of Australia.  So this year we decided on Italy.

 Why?  It kept G quiet, part of the joy for him is in planning out the route, which is then changed by me when I remind him of the realities of travelling with three boys – a 9 year old, a 12 year old and a 6ft 1 14 year old. So he sorted out our vehicle, his car, a golf estate with the racing roof box from Le Mans. In a break from tradition, and a nod to the kids desire to look inside rather than outside the car whilst travelling, he set up a complicated system of adapters and chargers for all of the electronic devices, including a brand new sat nav, which he has since said came with no instructions (more on that later).  I was then presented with a map of Italy, several bits of sticky paper with nights and locations, and proceeded to book up hotels in those areas.

Those of you with a strange family size that doesn’t fit the 2 adults/2 kids hoteliers dream, will realise that this is no mean feat when you are on a budget.  Luckily, over the years, the world has been getting smaller, families bigger and hotels have had to adapt.  And the internet is extremely useful.  So in one happy but slightly stressful afternoon I booked up all the hotels/apartments.  The plan was to travel down through France and Italy stopping en route, and then have a relaxing break in a pre booked villa in Sorrento before making our way back again. With 3 kids and a car, it became quite clear in some areas that it was going to be expensive, and so I looked out of town at more flexible options. We have yet to see how it all pans out, but so far, so good.

Garmin, sitting pride of place...

The alarm went off at 4.30am, and G shot out of bed as if he had been electrocuted. The boys had packed their bags, with all the essentials like gismos and hair styling products. We were all out of the house by 5.15, Tesco bags crammed full of BLT’s as a nod to breakfast.  Getting to the tunnel early, we were put on an earlier slot than booked and as the boys began to wake up, we reached France.  Garmin, our sat nav, woke up too, ready for our first stop, Dijon.  She (we haven’t learned yet how to change her slightly nagging voice, but I quite like her as she sighs and throws her hands up gallic style as we yet again go off in the wrong direction) directed us to Lyon.  G disagreed with this, and so we had to resort to (this is where friends of mine will grin, as they know how I love itineraries) my printed out directions from hotel to hotel, or in this case, tunnel to hotel. Garmin was right of course, and so G and her settled down to become better acquainted, just as the first ‘I’m hungry’ started from the back.

Swapping seats to the back to unfurl cramped legs

One service station later we were all traumatized. Eldest Son had been stopped by an over officious assistant who told him to put back his drinks and step away. At least, that is what he thought she had said, what she meant was, was that there was a certain place to pay for cold drinks, whilst we were queueing for baguettes. Once we got to the front of the queue, the server looked at me quizzically when I ordered three double hot dogs. ‘Trois?!!!’ she bellowed in incredulity as she looked at me.  I pointed out the children.  She muttered under her breath and slammed the baguettes into submission.  G and I had ready made ones, in a bid to pacify.  She refused to let G pay for the cold drinks in her queue, directing G to another queue.  Little Man wailed that he hated France.  This was not going well…

Hotel Armony, wasn’t really ‘armonious.  Situated on an industrial estate (lots of clothes shops and shoe shops) it stood like a slightly shabby teenager at a glamorous function. But it was cheap, it had parking, interconnecting rooms and a restaurant.  We were knackered.  The staff took to Little Man and didn’t even mind when he broke into an impromptu song and dance routine, Happy Feet style, as he waited for his food.

Little Man, our official tour photographer

We toddled off to bed, full and weary, the boys giggling through the interconnecting doors, Eldest Son trying to stop Little Man from jumping on top of him in their shared double bed.  Suddenly the boys broke into hysterics as Middle Son shot into our room, his face green, his toothbrush in his mouth.

Ahhhh Dijon, famous for its mustard, and somewhere that my boys will always remember as the place that Middle Son mistook Eldest Son’s hair gel for toothpaste…