Buona Pasqua! or, Back to la Drache
Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium
A quick last post on our trek from Northern Italy back to Brussels. Thanks for following along for this trip, and if you’re ever in Brussels, please drop me a line! - Peder
Northern Italy, a 10 minute drive from the Swiss border. Easter services with our friend Chiara and her family, in Varese, north of Milan, in the pre-Alps, the foothills, the white peaks of the mountains hidden in gray clouds. The local church a long nave, brick and concrete, incense, a kind, round-faced ruddy pastor with a balding head, speaking in deep tones. Buona pasqua! Buona pasqua! Don’t just shake hands, hug your neighbor, introduce yourself, he tells the faithful. Ciao, buona pasqua, a hug. Behind us, a girl wearing pink glasses with such a strong prescription that her eyes appear kindly bug-eyed, smiling up at us. Awkward teenagers with buzz cuts. An older man wearing a black leather jacket, extra chairs laid out behind the simple wooden pews. At the end of the service, the not-yet-confirmed children run up to the pastor for a blessing, fighting to be first in line before him.
We arrived in Varese two days before, meeting our friend Chiara for dinner in downtown Varese — she’s from the city. Chiara pointing out the stark concrete fascist architecture, where Mussolini spoke before an open square, the tall buildings meant to make one feel small. To sleep, up into the mountains again — a small forest clearing off the slim road up into the hills above the blue lakes, dark, more rain, and in the morning, the hum of small cars, the barking of dogs, whistles, and calls of Luna! Luna! Luna! We wake. I peek out the window. Old men with walkie-talkies and hunting fatigues, dogs in the trunk, sleek, lean coats, and silver whistles. Training the dogs for hunts. Luna! Luna! they shout. Luna’s gone. Missing dog. Dappled sun through the trees, gentle wind, the gentle clinking of dog tags. Luna! Luna!
Where the fuck is Luna? Rory mutters, and goes back to sleep.
Down to Lake Maggiore with Chiara. Walks in old villa gardens, pizza and Crodino, a ferry ride across the lake, tops of mountains hidden in the clouds, book stores and gelato, cheap salami. For dinner, homemade pizza cooked by Chiara’s parents — margarita, tuna, onions, olives. Conversation a multi-lingual mix of English, French, Spanish and Italian. Three generations living in a cozy four-apartment building. Big green garden in the backyard, turtles hiding behind bushes. Bunk beds in the spare bedroom, blue kitchen cabinets, red-handled drawers, beautifully clean countertops. Soapy-smelling garage, triathlon and marathon race banners, skies and hiking boots , sunglasses. Malnate, a suburb of Varese — churches and quiet residential streets and coffee in the morning. Finally, a shower after a week, fold out beds, deep sleep. In the morning, off to Easter services — baseball fields and supermarkets, narrow roads and tiny cars. Ciao! Buona pasqua! Grazie! The smell of incense coating our clothes, avoiding the rain.
After Easter services, we’re off, out of Italy, back towards Brussels, the end of the trip. Past Locarno, back up into the Swiss mountains through the mist and the rain through the tunnels, through Zurich, past Davos, near Liechtenstein, ribbons of water running down through the mountains, cozy red trains whipping through green hills, white snowy mountain tops. A road stop on a Swiss alpine mountain pass — horizontal snow and rain, cold biting wind, sheer cliffs, the Suisse Alpine Grill in a plywood shack, to protect one from the cold. Bratwurst and brot, toasted in a panini press, mustard in a metal tube. Ich will ein kaffee. Danke sehr. Warm coffee in the cold. A German-language paper with a photo of Putin on the cover. The clouds lift, the lakes below us, greens, blues, and bright grays.
A night in France, back to Colmar, in Alsace — for dinner, into a pub with the sharp, pungent smell of Munster cheese, a smell that hits you right between the eyes, stuffed wild boar on the walls, cold winds down from the hills through the dark stone streets, Black Forest cake. In the morning, a long drive back to Brussels — past farmer’s signs on the side of the road against the Mercocur trade agreement, through more fields of yellow flowers, nuclear power plants on the horizon billowing steam, a cafe au lait in a roadside rest stop in northern Alsace, sitting beside a German family slowly reading a French-language picture book with their daughter, a Free Palestine sign painted brightly against the side of a barn near the French border with Luxembourg, and, as soon as we’re back into Belgium, strong and sudden rain showers through the Ardennes. Again, la drache.
