luk

I went Italy when I was in my early 20’s, James was studying in Padua, I was studying Art at Camberwell so nipping over and seeing a few paintings, fresco’s, churches and shit, and getting blindly inebriated, made pure 100% sense. With nipples on it.

Needless to say, not being in family surroundings the first time round, I learnt a few things about the day-to-day comings and goings of the everyday Italian. For a kick off, lunch isn’t a sandwich at a desk; most Italians shut up shop for a few hours and go the family home for a proper sit down meal (traditionally pasta.) You can even drink wine without everyone staring at you like you’re about to ask for change. It’s fucking ace!

IC’s mum is a bloody good cook, the pork based ragu type thing we ate for lunch after Lucky’s ‘accident’ was buonissima! Despite the weather still being a bit shitty, following eating we three went out for a walk to see some of the finer points of Brescia. It’s a beautiful city, overseen by a 13th century castle with plenty of awe-inspiring churches and chapels (medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary) stuffed full of appropriate goodies, including a few significant frescos and panels. Whilst meandering I took on pistachio ice cream which was so good I nearly died on the spot. We visited the achingly gorgeous church where IC’s parents married, all the while IC happily translated conversations between her mum and I. Despite my contempt for Catholicism I love their accessories, I monitored my comments and focussed on the latter aspect.

Late afternoon IC’s mum went off to get some provisions and IC and I met up with ICS, we went out and had Apperativo before saffron Risotto at home overseen by a reformed Lucky, he was like a different dog, he even obeyed commands and took scooby snacks off me leaving my hand un-mangled flush with digits.

Out again after supper for cocktails. To the English ear this sounds downright elitist, but it’s normal for Italians. It’s much cheaper to drink over there and after discovering Negroni (Gin, Vermouth and Campari) I was able to get nicely toasted in comfortable surroundings and still have change for some tabs. IC, ICS and I were back in the same bar we’d visited the previous evening (IC knew the bloke that owned it and I was very happy in there) and were joined by some friends who joined in with the spirit of things. At some point I got into Sambucca. I should imagine we went home because I woke up once again half hanging out the little bed in the apartment.

It was an early start to Saturday, espresso, shower and out. The weather was fucking glorious, hot and sunny, a bit too much of the former actually but I wasn’t complaining, though I just did then a bit. We took the train to Venice that hummed in air-conditioned happiness through lush green countryside and some of the cities and towns I’d visited with James some two decades earlier. That hit home quite hard that did. What happened in between? I was probably pissed.

Indeed, James and I had managed to get to Venice too, but this in no way diminished the sheer jaw dangling joy on exiting the station to see an entire city with all its roads replaced by rivers and canals. I’m not going to bother to describe it (just go, you can fly there directly) and of all the places I’ve been to it remains the most beautiful, sublime, so much so it’s virtually otherworldly. We walked in the heat, over bridges, through passages, into piazzas, lazily heading for St. Marks.

We ate pizza and drank wine in a pretty little square outside one of Venice’s hundreds of trattorias and osterias, it was fucking, fucking ace of spades. We finally found St. Marks bustling with tourists, pigeons and stalls selling relative tat -Venice sailor hats, masks, glass curiosities, fridge magnets of little gondolas… and then went to Harry’s Bar after securing our tickets for the taxi-boat back to the station.

It wasn’t as civilised as I remember when I went with James, for a start it was full of bloody rich Americans who were playing their usual tiresome game of treating the place like they owned it while self consciously doing the whole, ‘yeah, so we’re in Venice,’ thing. The relative ease of getting to Harry’s Bar with IC doesn’t do justice to the greater personal significance of being there with her. It was, without going into any detail at all, a milestone of sorts. Even if I was charged almost £40 cunting Euros for a pair of whisky sours.

Final part tomorrow you’ll be relieved to hear