Bologna and Milan: Random Encounters
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The Piazza Miaggiore outside the basilica (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
I had to break a jinx about coming to Italy, one of three countries that had kept me from traveling to each of them for some strange reason. Since I now live in Europe, it was time to put an end to it. When I arrived on the weekend before the start of the book fair in early April, I thought, well, there was nothing to it after all.
Bologna is small, you can walk around the historical center in a day (or less), eat tortellini, taste gelato, and say arrivederci. It didn’t strike me like its filtered depictions in movies. In fact, this medieval city is drab, the color of burnt bricks (they like to call it la rossa – as in, red, which also happens to denote its well-known communist politics).
Burnt and ocre colors of Bologna's medieval city (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
When I heard one tourist at the hotel say that it reminded him of New York, I thought I’d burst out laughing. Did he say that because of the graffiti on the walls, mostly seen in the university district (Bologna has Italy’s oldest university, from the 11th century)? I felt that it was closer to Athens, both in street art and the melody of the language.
The Comics Cafe in the city's famous university district (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
My days came and went without much of a thunder. I was aghast at myself for having a late lunch at a restaurant with red-and-white checkered tablecloth, and with the tomato sauce tasting like it was canned. How cliché was that? There was no choice; most kitchens were closed at three in the afternoon.
The streets were easy to remember despite the meandering turns. Walking down from the main Via Dell’Indipendenza, we visited the basilica at the Piazza Maggiore, the center of it all, and from where everything else lies about, in porticoed sidewalks, cafes that didn’t seem to have changed décor in decades, in vintage shops pretty for picture-taking.
Some color from the park leading to the city's main Via Dell'Indipendenza (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
Before my scheduled flight out, I walked on other streets I hadn’t gone to, killing time, not seeing anything out of Bologna’s style. When I returned to the hotel to collect my luggage, the message about my flight cancelation pinged on my phone, and I don’t know why I broke into tears. The concierge said I should rush to the train station, which was five minutes on foot, to catch one leaving for Paris in a few minutes.
And that’s when it all began, the thing that would mark my trip, the spell about to be broken. Of course, the train station was in some kind of a commotion; I was panicking to buy a ticket and couldn’t tell which line I should be in. How could I catch the train to Paris if the wait number was going to be a long one?
In my desperation, I turned to the guy next to me, a very young man with short brownish blond hair and eyes that were light blue. I was saved because he spoke English. I was saved because he saved me, taking me down the stairs and up another and through tunnels to find a ticket counter with shorter lines. No, the train to Paris would not work, we were told, part of the railroad track was under repair. Yes, I could take the train to Milan, the nearest biggest city from Bologna, and from there catch a flight out.
In between all that, scrolling his smart phone and deciding options for me, I got to know him a little. He was university student, no doubt about it, finishing a degree in computer science and thinking of taking his master’s in digital humanity, a course I had not heard of. He told me he was a scout and fervently talked about a fervent mission to help underprivileged boys. I said goodbye to Alberto and gave him a hug.
Before taking his leave, he allowed me to use his phone to call the secretary of the consul general in Milan who was coming to Bologna to pick up the books at the fair and said I could get a ride with them, only to change her mind immediately for some reason or other, and I fumed. I had seen the consul himself the other night at the Philippine booth’s cocktail party where he held court with stories of rescuing Filipina prostitutes in Iraq. And just when I needed help now, they couldn’t even give a dame in distress a ride to Milan. What I got was a booking link to a hostel near the station.
At the Bologna Centrale’s lobby, our wait numbers appeared just in time. Do you want a slow train or a fast train? What’s the price difference? Slow train is 18 euros and it will take three hours to Milan. Fast train is 50 euros and it will take you an hour. I chose the slow train; 18 was a good number. I spent 18 euros that morning for my brunch at the Omnia Bar at the corner of Via del Porto: a vegan sandwich of tomatoes and fake tuna, vegan matcha, and vegan chocolate muffin. I had even taken my sweet time writing a mini journal of my so-so Bologna experience.
The night before, I treated Nida, the publisher of Avenida Books, to a pasta meal at a tavern on the Via Mentana that people lined up for. I had seen Osteria dell’Orsa on my first day, but I didn’t want to go alone. We had to taste classic pasta, right? I didn’t know where else to go. I had already gone to a vegan restaurant called Zem on the Via Mascarella just to taste what the tortellini was about, but one for vegetarians.
Nida and I were starving after the end of the book fair. We had to celebrate. My pasta was creamy with white sauce. Hers was Bolognese, if I remember correctly. We were led to a basement as tables upstairs were all taken. We ate fast to give way to others, and I couldn’t say if I had a genuine Italian meal. Afterwards I promised to take her to the old-fashioned gelateria on Via Delle Moline at the corner where the line too had been long but not tonight when it started raining. She had pistachio. I had yogurt to calm my stomach.
When I returned to the hotel to collect my luggage, the message about my flight cancelation pinged on my phone, and I don’t know why I broke into tears.
The slow train to Milan was leaving in an hour. I found the platform right away and the rail crew said I could take any seat, but there was no wifi on board. Another young man sat beside me. His face reminded me of John Lennon and he spoke with an English accent, but he was very much an Italian giving me a discourse on Italian art and culture. He said he was going to turn 20 next week, and I immediately realized he could have been my son and we could be traveling together. He said his name was Elia. After the prophet, he emphasized.
On his cellphone, Elia gave me a tour of what I should have known and seen about Bologna’s basilica, the San Petronio. The bottom half was different from the top, one looking older than the other; and that’s because construction had to be stopped when the plague happened during some century or other. I was ashamed that I hadn’t even noticed it. Why? Because of my arrogance. It was nothing close to the Notre Dame in Paris. Besides that, I was tired of being a tourist. All I could see were crowds and how I could avoid them. I have stopped going to restaurants that required reservations. And God knows the frustration I feel when I have to book online for a museum visit.
I had gone to the art gallery, the Pinacoteca Nazionale, on Via Delle Belle Arti on a Sunday when it was free for the first Sunday of the month. Arriving at almost noon, it was such a relief to find that visitors were not as many as I thought. I told my young seatmate on the train that I preferred the Middle Age religious paintings. I saw one of the Last Supper with a distinct shape of a goat, as if drawn by a child, on the table before Jesus Christ.
On the bridge (Via Stalingrado) going out of the city center, a street art shows something of home: the title of the national hero's famous novel (Photo by Criselda Yabes).
What about the Renaissance?
I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled about the murals being awesome. Didn’t I like Guido Reni? I did, somewhat.
Somewhat!? He’s famous. (Of course, he was, a true Baroque master from Bologna).
So I was told, by the guide in the gallery.
You must like Giotto?
Who?
Giotto.
By now, he was speaking Italian and I liked the sound of it better than his English accent.
He’s the ultimate Italian painter, he said. (Yes, from Florence, in the 14th century).
You mean, better than Da Vinci?
I got him there. (Proceeding to tell me of the influence Giotto had on Da Vinci, who was from the 15th century).
Now that I’m on my way to Milan, I must see Da Vinci’s Last Supper at a convent museum. (By the time I Googled it, the site said the entrance has to be booked way in advance just to have 15 minutes of viewing and waiting half an hour before that with only 40 people allowed to have their turn).
The kid got off the train halfway through my destination. I was getting impatient to reach Milan and I kept looking out the window. I was hoping I’d have a view of something that looked like Tuscany even though that was in another region. Alberto had warned me the landscape would be flat, and Elia tried to please me by pointing out cappellas (chapels) in the fields. As the train neared Milan, the landscape was turning industrial.
For what it’s worth, landing at Milan’s train station was compensation for my canceled flight. It’s by far the most grandiose station I have ever seen and my eyes couldn’t record every single detail because I was exhausted. I couldn’t even find the hostel on the map, which turned out to be just around the corner. And if it’s more of a relief, the young girl at the front desk was a young Pinay who spoke in Tagalog as if she was happy to be practicing it with me.
She gave me a free welcome drink, more pasta for the aperitif, and I was glad it was vegetarian, free breakfast, and free towel for the night. The next day I only had to see the Duomo, or the Dome, before taking a bus to the airport to catch, finally, my trip back to France. The rooms were full and I could only book in a mixed room of six beds, and when I got up in the morning, I realized my roommates were all young men.
It was 40 minutes of walking to the Duomo in the fresh and sunny morning. Milan is a bigger city, no doubt, and with more shops (as it is known for clothes). I crossed a park and bathed in the sun, and alas, there was Da Vinci’s statue. Another compensation for missing his Last Supper. Behind him was the most extravagantly European architecture of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, where shops only favor those who can afford Prada and Dior. There was history to this place. I had walked straight out into the light to see, there it was – the Duomo.
Milan's classic Galleria Emanuele (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
Milan's Duomo on a sunny morning (Photo by Criselda Yabes)
It was closed for visitors. Police barricaded it. Some important people were on the steps for photo ops. There must have been some kind of an official meeting. I took pictures like the rest of the tourists and went on to walk towards Via Dante, where there were more shops, and straight to a garden inside castle walls.
That was all I could take of a quickie visit, before heading back to the hostel to get my suitcase for the bus ride to the airport in Bergamo, where I had my last gelato from the Venchi brand, a single scoop of vegan dark chocolate called Azateco worth four euros and twenty cents.
A day after arriving home in France, I ran into a common friend whom I hadn’t seen in years. He was Italian and I told him about my trip to Italy. “That’s the north,” he said. “Go south. Go anywhere below Rome and you will see the heart of Italy.” I took mental notes of places he said I ought to go to – which means Italy isn’t quite over yet.
Criselda Yabes is a writer and journalist who has written about a dozen books, some of them on the military and Mindanao.
She now lives in northeast France and comes home to the Philippines when life calls for it.
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