Travel mates

Travels can be very odd. They can show you how nonsense the word international can be, or that is better, that internationality can be very unexpected. In the middle of the moral capital of Italy, Milan, a lonely South Italian traveller lacking of a durable cell phone battery but full of travel enthusiasm can feel a stranger. “Mi scusi per il Duomo?” “Tout droit!”, “What is the right direction for Castello Sforzesco?” “No esto”, “Where I have to go to go where I have to go?!”.
It sounds weird, you can get lost in translations like an English pun explained in German, such as lost between roads. Finally the only international language that is gestures and smiles leads you to a place, that the god looking Spanish boy, you smartly had chosen among the crowd to obtain information, called “la plaza con el pozo”. Unfortunately, the boy can’t come with you but you can be also grateful to him for the wonderful discovery of the little corner of the city, Piazza dei Mercanti, ancient place for legal and trade business, full of historical charm and old beauty and Japanese cameras. On the left corner, a narrow street leads you to a boulevard, Via degli Orefici, according to the gentle waitress of the coffee shop in the street. Keep going, do not look to any street map, this city leads you with his spirit. Not even the stomach can recall your consciousness when it is kidnapped by the little refined church that a witty architect has nestled among the biggest palaces around it, Santa Maria presso San Santiro. Little like a chapel if seen from the outside, wide like a temple to the first look from the inside, functionally studied like a studio apartment when you go next to the altar and discover the trick. It’s time for the famous Navigli. They are not a discovery, though. Even you, during your first visit in Milan can help two lost Turkish tourists to find these popular sewers, right at the end of the Corso Ticinese. The canals flow unruffled and you try to find the last gem of the day, in the brown eyes of a Sicilian man, with a gentle smile, a thick pair of moustache and a tiny vintage shop hidden in an alley on Naviglio Grande. At evening, it’s time to reach the hotel and sit on the wooden seat on the tram number 2, thinking of the well showed by a Spanish, the church reached thanks to the waitress, the Navigli shared with the Turkish couple, holding in the hand the watercolour that the Sicilian man has gifted to you. It’s time to think of the real gems, the people.