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Austria - Texas: Football Night

On a dark winter night, when you're driving back from one of the many thermal baths scattered around south Styria and your passengers on the backseats are listening to a Spanish broadcast of El Classico, the last thing you would expect to come across is a giant neon football built along a country road. For a moment again, the sensation of being not in Mitteleuropa, but somewhere else, very far from here, passes through my mind.

The Upright Tower

Torre Guinigi (Lucca)

Catching the end of the year

Before moving north to Saronno and from there to Graz again, we wanted to give a last glance at the sun plunging into the sea.

A treat for real men

Valentine in Normandy

Young and less-young guys queuing up with patience and resignation in front of the last flowers shop open in town. Empty shelves in the pastry shops. All the bars and restaurants full booked with couples eating oysters and drinking Calvados. And two stranded guys going around in search for something else to eat.

(Made and sent from my mobile)

Wind, salt and ...

The call of a seagull breaking the silence. A flock of screaming sea birds fighting for a piece of baguette left in a waste basket. The sun rising behind the tossing masts of the boats moored along the channel-harbor of Caen. A clear blue sky. The smell of salt coming with the wind. I couldn't ask for more this morning.

(Made and sent from my mobile.)

Sunset in Mougins

I'm wondering if Pablo Picasso, walking along the narrow streets of his village of adoption, has ever stopped at the entrance of this alley, on a warm February evening and stared at the palette offered by the sunset

(Made and sent from my mobile)

Landmarks

The door to door distance between Graz and Milan is exactly 700 Km. The first time I drove it appeared to me as never ending. I had never been up here and everything was new. The uncertainty, the unknown behind the bend, beyond the tunnel were at highest levels. 

With time, I have learned to split the track in several fractions, each distinguished by some kind of recognizable landmark: a refueling station, a route change, a long tunnel, a lake, the billboard of a selling point, etc. I concentrate on these to make the trip seem a bit shorter.

On the Road

In the hall of the students' residence where I'm staying in this beginning of this experience of mine in Austria, there's a large bookcase where people passing by are invited to drop something from their latest readings. The shelves have just begun to populate, as the building was only built one year ago. Yet, there are already some good things to pick and read, provided you had time and you were able to read from German as well.

I'm not used to stop by, as I'm always on the run or because the hall it's always crowded with so many young exuberant students that stares at you from the moment you get out of the lift, as you were a freak or a martian. Still, there are times that I have to go downstairs and wait for the laundry to finish its job. Then, in the attempt to show indifference, I stop in front of this new born library and begin listing one title after another, till I find something interesting.

So I came across this German edition of Kerouac's "On the Road" and started reading the well known opening ... and taking notes.

(Made and sent from my mobile)

Graz

As anticipated, last Tuesday has been a good and very long day. It started with a dramatic sky in Italy and ended with a sunny sunset in Austria. Even though I had been flying and driving for the whole day, a short walk around the hotel was necessary before I met with some friends for dinner.

 (Made and sent from my mobile.)

Waiting for the ferry

A daily trip to Laveno, on the west east coast of Lago Maggiore. Be it by train, motorbike or car, a stop in the small harbour on the longest lake of Italy and a visit to the islands Borromee by these old fashioned ferry is a recommended alternative to the most frequented Como Lake, once you are in Lombardy. If it happens to be on a windy and sunny day soon after a snow blizzard then you can't ask for more. The sight on the Alps (Monte Rosa) is breathtaking.

A look through the glass

On my way back to Milan, last week, I had to my surprise an almost unique opportunity to lay alone, for the whole night, in a compartment of the sleeping coach of the train coming from Vienna. The coach controller must have felt some pity for me, when he saw me jumping on the train and, instead of cramming me with three more people of uncertain origin, offered me an empty compartment, saying: "Lock the door from inside and have a good sleep. What do you prefer for breakfast: coffee or tea?"

Sleeping on a train is not that easy. You are shaken all the time, loud noises surround you, people pass by your room while talking out loud. There's nothing that lets you deeply surrender to the natural instinct to rest and detach from the world. After spending the whole night turning around myself on a hard "bed", I eventually opened the blinds and discovered that my train had been somehow "hijacked", due to the bad weather conditions that caused more than a riven to overflow and break the levees.

It didn't take me a lot to understand that it had been switched on an old single line railway, crossing the flatland of Pianura Padana. So, while waiting for my tea to be served, I took my cellcam out and started taking pictures of the landscape passing by.

A day far from here

One day in Villach (AUT), not far from the border with Italy. A working day, few people in the streets, very little to notice an italian wandering about in the afternoon under a soft drizzle, taking pictures with his cellcam.

On my second lap in the old town I was even able to find something that made me feel at home for a while. So I turned the street corner and went in. But it wasn't actually the same ... 

On the road again

My backpack is filled with all my necessary, so is my trolley. It's time for a short stay abroad again. I'm not going far, a train will suffice. So I opted for not taking a camera with me: "I won't have time for ...", I thought. How could I be so stupid, I say. To my support, once again, the crankiest of the cameras working on this world: my mobile.

Milano, Stazione Centrale

Back to Brännö - II

Right in the middle of the island, where the two main streets cross each other, there's a small restaurant with few tables inside the two small rooms available (and a small "veranda" just fit for one round table). It usually takes some luck to find it open and a table where to sit. I remember that once, in the autumn season, I got to the door five minutes after the closing time and, notwithstanding the kitchen was open for the guests already sitting inside, I was told to be late. I found it quite disappointing to get back on my steps, walk the mile to the peer and sit under the waiting hut for almost an hour.

This time I was lucky. All the noisy guests were sitting outside and beside a nice group of gentle ladies talking quietly in the setting sun soaked veranda, no one else was inside. I picked my favourite corner, called for the chart and, while waiting for the dinner to be served, I pulled out my travels notebook and started taking record of the lucky event.

Gone fishing: back soon.

I have nothing to say. I had written a long article to comment the picture below. Then I thought it was not really necessary and brushed everything off. The sun is low on the horizon, pointing at the northern pole once again. I'm heading north as well. Maybe for the very last time, maybe for the very first. Who knows.

Tuscania - II