I had chosen the spot on Blackheath carefully, directly in front of our old house and near a small tree, but not under the branches to avoid bird droppings.
Steve appeared just before 10am in a small van, fretting that his colleagues who were bringing the bench on a flatbed truck hadn't already arrived. They turned up after a few minutes, still ahead of the appointed time, driving across the grass, a minor transgression I felt, but acceptable in the circumstances. The bench was pale, like a newborn, quite different from the established old lags elsewhere on the Heath which were weathered to silvery grey. People would notice it, I thought, and perhaps the more curious would change their course, walk over and inspect the inscription: In memory of Walter and Jacqueline Welford 2015. A few might even recognise the names. It's worth putting some stain on it every six months, I do that with my shed to keep it looking good, Steve advised. The comparison seemed vaguely profane but wood is wood, I suppose.
The chaps from the flatbed wrestled the bench into position, checking that its orientation was to my liking, then excavated holes to conceal the metal brackets attached to its legs. Long poles were driven through the brackets into the turf. When they were rammed home, anchors were opened remotely at the foot of each pole. It seemed pretty secure.
After the workmen left, I took a couple of photos: a close up with the inscription clearly legible, then a broader view showing our house in the background. The bench faced east and glowed in the bright morning sunshine; I think my mother would have approved, even though her preferred location was Greenwich Park for which I had been unable to gain permission. My father would have made a wry comment or a clever pun but have been secretly pleased: he loved Blackheath and was sad to leave Orchard Drive.
Finally I sat down. The view has changed very little since I last looked out of the windows of the house forty years ago. Small trees have been planted, marking the edge of Eliot Place and there are half a dozen other benches scattered around what I always think of as 'our' piece of the Heath: the triangle bounded by Hare and Billet Road, Eliot Place and Orchard Drive. The street lighting has been modernised. In the fifties there were ordinary incandescent bulbs. These were upgraded to orange sodium lamps in the sixties and have recently been replaced by energy saving LEDs. There are new lamp standards designed to resemble old-fashioned gas fittings which complement the surrounding architecture well. Discordantly, to the left, No 1 Canada Square, commonly referred to as Canary Wharf, peeps over the horizon, looking oddly out of proportion as most of the tower is hidden by Blackheath's high plateau.
Now that I live in east London, I often traverse the foot tunnel under the Thames and amble up through Greenwich Park to Blackheath. Sometimes I avoid Orchard Drive, at other times I deliberately aim for it, pacing up and down and recalling the names of the families who inhabited each house in the 1960s. I think about walking across the Heath to the station to catch the train for school. When it was foggy, it was possible to get completely disoriented and end up near the Princess of Wales pub instead of in the village. In the snow, my mother would taking us tobogganing in the old gravel pits, my father a reluctant participant. But oddly none of the memories triggered by these visits stir any emotions, they are more like historical facts. Yes, I was there, I did those things - end of, as the kids say nowadays.
Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Thursday, 10 September 2015
Parma
Of the multitude of excursions proposed by Leo, the only one to which I'd unconditionally agreed was Parma, the eponymous cheese and ham being an irresistible temptation. So it was that on the final day of the holiday, when the weather took pity on us and the temperature finally dropped below 30C, we set off.
The ticket machines at Bologna railway station greet passengers with a loud warning about pickpockets, an injunction calculated to make you pat your pockets nervously, thus giving any nearby thieves the precise location of your valuables. Once Leo gave up wrestling with the Italian instructions we secured four first class tickets, each the size of an airline boarding pass. These needed to be validated at a different machine which we eventually found on the platform; failure to comply would incur a hefty fine, Leo informed us. I observed sourly that this is not required on UK trains and must be unnecessary, a kind of railway skeuomorph indicative of the backwardness of Italian public transport. The sole first class carriage was located at the end of the train and indistinguishable from standard class except that the air conditioning was not working.
The countryside between Bologna and Parma is unremarkable except for mountains visible in the distance which looked appealingly refreshing after a week in persistent heat. The route from Parma station to the town centre was parallel to the river so I suggested a short detour, hoping proximity to running water would have a revitalising effect. There were a number of elegant bridges but the river was missing. Well-established bushes colonised the edges and a small park was visible where the river should be. Only a gravelly scar on the dry bed suggested water had once flowed. It was a dispiriting sight. Sally wondered whether local estate agents still advertised properties as having a river view.
A single cafe was open by the dusty central piazza and we decided on an early lunch. Leo and Sally ordered risotto, which despite Parma's reputation for culinary excellence, they declared inedible. The waitress seemed resigned when Leo bravely explained we weren't paying for them. Clearly complaints weren't unusual and they compensated for their loss by overcharging us for lukewarm coffee. Glenda composed an excoriating review for TripAdvisor.
Sunday afternoon in Parma proved a quiet affair. The shops were closed and we'd missed the city museum by half an hour. In desperation we visited the archeological museum, an airless trove of exhibits mainly looted from other countries, an honourable tradition, remarked Glenda.
By mid afternoon, in the absence of any other diversion, we resorted to the cathedral but, having done its weekly duty to the faithful, even that was closed. We trudged back towards the station, on the lookout for a cafe which would meet Leo's exacting standards. Nowhere that was open passed the test and we found ourselves contemplating the flyblown station cafe. At least this wouldn't disappoint, I comforted Leo, our expectations of a such an establishment being so low. Nevertheless, it succeeded: they didn't even serve coffee and we were redirected to an equally unappetising adjacent alternative.
We opted for standard class tickets for the return journey and I dozed, surprising myself by looking forward to getting back to Bologna.
The ticket machines at Bologna railway station greet passengers with a loud warning about pickpockets, an injunction calculated to make you pat your pockets nervously, thus giving any nearby thieves the precise location of your valuables. Once Leo gave up wrestling with the Italian instructions we secured four first class tickets, each the size of an airline boarding pass. These needed to be validated at a different machine which we eventually found on the platform; failure to comply would incur a hefty fine, Leo informed us. I observed sourly that this is not required on UK trains and must be unnecessary, a kind of railway skeuomorph indicative of the backwardness of Italian public transport. The sole first class carriage was located at the end of the train and indistinguishable from standard class except that the air conditioning was not working.
The countryside between Bologna and Parma is unremarkable except for mountains visible in the distance which looked appealingly refreshing after a week in persistent heat. The route from Parma station to the town centre was parallel to the river so I suggested a short detour, hoping proximity to running water would have a revitalising effect. There were a number of elegant bridges but the river was missing. Well-established bushes colonised the edges and a small park was visible where the river should be. Only a gravelly scar on the dry bed suggested water had once flowed. It was a dispiriting sight. Sally wondered whether local estate agents still advertised properties as having a river view.
A single cafe was open by the dusty central piazza and we decided on an early lunch. Leo and Sally ordered risotto, which despite Parma's reputation for culinary excellence, they declared inedible. The waitress seemed resigned when Leo bravely explained we weren't paying for them. Clearly complaints weren't unusual and they compensated for their loss by overcharging us for lukewarm coffee. Glenda composed an excoriating review for TripAdvisor.
Sunday afternoon in Parma proved a quiet affair. The shops were closed and we'd missed the city museum by half an hour. In desperation we visited the archeological museum, an airless trove of exhibits mainly looted from other countries, an honourable tradition, remarked Glenda.
By mid afternoon, in the absence of any other diversion, we resorted to the cathedral but, having done its weekly duty to the faithful, even that was closed. We trudged back towards the station, on the lookout for a cafe which would meet Leo's exacting standards. Nowhere that was open passed the test and we found ourselves contemplating the flyblown station cafe. At least this wouldn't disappoint, I comforted Leo, our expectations of a such an establishment being so low. Nevertheless, it succeeded: they didn't even serve coffee and we were redirected to an equally unappetising adjacent alternative.
We opted for standard class tickets for the return journey and I dozed, surprising myself by looking forward to getting back to Bologna.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Time travel
There is a deep disjunction between the interests of tourists and the preoccupations of local inhabitants. In London, visitors gasp at Cutty Sark while I am obsessed with congestion on the DLR. They compare the curated presentation of the past to their cherished images but, like creatures lacking a cerebellum, they don't contemplate the future. Why should they; glorious history is their quarry and while they have to contend with the present day vicissitudes of an unfamiliar country, their future lies at home. In contrast, my preoccupation with the DLR concerns how overcrowding will be exacerbated by the next efflorescence of buy-to-leave apartment blocks. This divergence exacerbates locals' resentment of tourists, and is heightened by the recognition that tourist dollars are necessary to lubricate a stagnant economy.
In Bologna we are not interested in the drab commercial centre, local political machinations or even the proposed trolley buses (incidentally already five years overdue). Wild cat strikes on the trains are merely an annoyance, disrupting our out of town excursions, not rooted in a cause we support or even comprehend. We seek the antiquities, the mythic Mediterranean lifestyle. Reversing LP Hartley's aphorism, the purpose of travel is to access the past: time travel masquerading as tourism. How apposite it was to see lines from The Great Gatsby emblazoned on a T-shirt in Bologna: so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Friday, 4 September 2015
Heat
Constant heat stagnates time. In our airbnb (more appropriately, airless bnb) it's less intolerable at night, but still stifling, so it might as well be the middle of the day. At night, I wake panting for air, as though in the grip of a dragging illness. Leo doesn't sleep well and, lacking diurnal temperature cues, his metabolism becomes untethered. Yesterday he had dinner at 7am and breakfast at lunchtime. With the hours coagulating we are trapped in lassitude. Physical movement slows and mental agility declines; even novels become an effort.
Expansive plans to visit unmissable outlying towns, hatched on the terrace at midnight, are snagged in sleep-deprived torpor by morning. Lofty aspirations to plumb the city's Renaissance heart decay into flaneurism as we trawl back streets for coffee and gelateria through an enervating concoction of limpid heat and acrid cigarette smoke. In the apartment, the reluctant air conditioner shreds stale air.
Like the students whose quarter of the city we share, we become nocturnal, venturing out late in the evening when languor has dissipated to merriment. In the porticoed arcades, meandering locals make unsignalled pauses to greet lounging acquaintances or josh with friends occupying cafe tables punctuating the thoroughfare. Our usual urgent pace dwindles as we rein in urban briskness to avoid trampling them on the crowded pavements. In an accelerated evolution, over a few days, our higher latitude behaviour has adapted to this new environment, a microcosm of climate change.
Retail life has adopted split shifts to foil the oppressive climate but the evening sessions are too short to compensate for afternoon closing. Topping up supper provisions at a supermarket, our request for a slice of succulent rare beef was turned down. "Five minutes to closing" was the gnomic response. I indulged in a momentary northern European fury before realising how neatly his phrase captured the Italian leitmotif.
© David Thompson 2015
Expansive plans to visit unmissable outlying towns, hatched on the terrace at midnight, are snagged in sleep-deprived torpor by morning. Lofty aspirations to plumb the city's Renaissance heart decay into flaneurism as we trawl back streets for coffee and gelateria through an enervating concoction of limpid heat and acrid cigarette smoke. In the apartment, the reluctant air conditioner shreds stale air.
Like the students whose quarter of the city we share, we become nocturnal, venturing out late in the evening when languor has dissipated to merriment. In the porticoed arcades, meandering locals make unsignalled pauses to greet lounging acquaintances or josh with friends occupying cafe tables punctuating the thoroughfare. Our usual urgent pace dwindles as we rein in urban briskness to avoid trampling them on the crowded pavements. In an accelerated evolution, over a few days, our higher latitude behaviour has adapted to this new environment, a microcosm of climate change.
Retail life has adopted split shifts to foil the oppressive climate but the evening sessions are too short to compensate for afternoon closing. Topping up supper provisions at a supermarket, our request for a slice of succulent rare beef was turned down. "Five minutes to closing" was the gnomic response. I indulged in a momentary northern European fury before realising how neatly his phrase captured the Italian leitmotif.
© David Thompson 2015
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
Herne Bay
Crossrail, maturing in its chrysalis under East London, will add yet another travel option to the bewildering web of interconnectedness catacombing the capital. Even now, periodic tube strikes only serve to challenge us to construct alternatives to our familiar routes which often prove faster or more appealing than the original. Thus, undaunted by the second stoppage of the summer, I discovered bus service D8, a historical tour through Docklands' yuppy towers, mosques squatting on street corners and resurgent canals. Embarking at Crossharbour and terminating at Stratford International it could scarcely have been more convenient. It's clearly a station not intended for lingering: no shops or advertisements Gerry wailed uncharacteristically. Donald contemplated the concrete construction which lacked even the minimal charm of Brutalism. It's crushed and pulverised after demolition then recast into new buildings, he mused, cheaper than landfill.
Sleek Javelin trains, the name intended to elicit subconscious associations with the swankier bullet train, emblazoned with Southeastern logos hurry to their home turf south of the Thames. For the first few miles we're sucked through suburban tunnels in the jet stream of the Eurostars. The speed is fitting; just as excavating these new tunnels was many times faster than digging Brunel's original Thames crossing, so the means of transport for which they are designed is proportionately swifter.
Kent doesn't much resemble the Garden of England here. Larkin's acres of dismantled cars jostle with warehouses and builders' merchants: the usual detritus populating the penumbra of large cities. Then impenetrable suburbia and finally some straggly vines and orchards open on to the Medway and a glimpse of a submarine half sunk in mud, its unmistakable profile still sinister in rusting decrepitude.
There's little to detain us when we reach Birchington-on-Sea. Passing mock-Tudor houses, thirties Art Deco piles and contemporary architectural riffs on both, we head for the coast. Unloved huts, which I initially took for bus shelters, support hard benches facing in two directions enabling the locals to either celebrate the sea or contemplate the smugness of the citizenry.
This coastal path makes little demands on the walker. Most of it is a concrete-topped sea wall where anything more robust than trainers would be an affectation. Strollers predominate and a novelty multi-person bike powered by children's laughter gives the whole affair a carnival atmosphere. We ambled, orienting by Reculver a ruined abbey on the horizon and, as is the way with constantly visible objects, never growing any closer. In the sea, a stubble of distant wind turbines intermittently materialised as the mist swirled. On the land, from the slight eminence of the sea wall, a flat landscape strained the imagination to convexity. Occupying the sky more than the land, I felt myself striding tall.
Gerry was delighted by the foraging opportunities. Wild apples and other predecessors of modern agriculture had him waxing lyrical about self-sufficiency until we passed an industrial scale fish farm when ranting over pollution took precedence. After a couple of hours on the shadeless path we were testy by lunchtime. I'd brought sandwiches so we were condemned to eating on the pub terrace, besieged by a loveliness of ladybirds, only retreating to the cool interior for coffee.
By mid-afternoon, strapped to motionless heat, the idea of Whitstable our original destination, had retreated and the focus was cream tea at Herne Bay. Bungalows heralded its arrival, many perched within sleepwalking distance of rapidly eroding cliffs. Come on, make my day, they challenge the sea. We escaped engulfing suburbia by descending a precipitate path, the last defence for these plucky homesteads, to rejoin the last of the beach. Belying the unpromising outskirts, Herne Bay's sea front is resolutely Victorian, supplemented by an aloof Georgian terrace. Tea was a disappointment and tackling a mincemeat flan constructed from Donald's recycled concrete delayed us so that after a genteel scamper through the backstreets we missed the train by moments. None of us had pressing business so we improved the hour by reading or, in my case, writing this.
Sleek Javelin trains, the name intended to elicit subconscious associations with the swankier bullet train, emblazoned with Southeastern logos hurry to their home turf south of the Thames. For the first few miles we're sucked through suburban tunnels in the jet stream of the Eurostars. The speed is fitting; just as excavating these new tunnels was many times faster than digging Brunel's original Thames crossing, so the means of transport for which they are designed is proportionately swifter.
Kent doesn't much resemble the Garden of England here. Larkin's acres of dismantled cars jostle with warehouses and builders' merchants: the usual detritus populating the penumbra of large cities. Then impenetrable suburbia and finally some straggly vines and orchards open on to the Medway and a glimpse of a submarine half sunk in mud, its unmistakable profile still sinister in rusting decrepitude.
There's little to detain us when we reach Birchington-on-Sea. Passing mock-Tudor houses, thirties Art Deco piles and contemporary architectural riffs on both, we head for the coast. Unloved huts, which I initially took for bus shelters, support hard benches facing in two directions enabling the locals to either celebrate the sea or contemplate the smugness of the citizenry.
This coastal path makes little demands on the walker. Most of it is a concrete-topped sea wall where anything more robust than trainers would be an affectation. Strollers predominate and a novelty multi-person bike powered by children's laughter gives the whole affair a carnival atmosphere. We ambled, orienting by Reculver a ruined abbey on the horizon and, as is the way with constantly visible objects, never growing any closer. In the sea, a stubble of distant wind turbines intermittently materialised as the mist swirled. On the land, from the slight eminence of the sea wall, a flat landscape strained the imagination to convexity. Occupying the sky more than the land, I felt myself striding tall.
Gerry was delighted by the foraging opportunities. Wild apples and other predecessors of modern agriculture had him waxing lyrical about self-sufficiency until we passed an industrial scale fish farm when ranting over pollution took precedence. After a couple of hours on the shadeless path we were testy by lunchtime. I'd brought sandwiches so we were condemned to eating on the pub terrace, besieged by a loveliness of ladybirds, only retreating to the cool interior for coffee.
By mid-afternoon, strapped to motionless heat, the idea of Whitstable our original destination, had retreated and the focus was cream tea at Herne Bay. Bungalows heralded its arrival, many perched within sleepwalking distance of rapidly eroding cliffs. Come on, make my day, they challenge the sea. We escaped engulfing suburbia by descending a precipitate path, the last defence for these plucky homesteads, to rejoin the last of the beach. Belying the unpromising outskirts, Herne Bay's sea front is resolutely Victorian, supplemented by an aloof Georgian terrace. Tea was a disappointment and tackling a mincemeat flan constructed from Donald's recycled concrete delayed us so that after a genteel scamper through the backstreets we missed the train by moments. None of us had pressing business so we improved the hour by reading or, in my case, writing this.
Travelling to Bologna
The Goldilocks zone, 21C for Sally and me, is the temperature at which neither of us is uncomfortable and therefore our target for holiday destinations. Bologna is nowhere near the middle of the curve. At best, late August averages are in the upper twenties, this year they are in the mid thirties, which, despite normal body temperature being 37C, is the range in which I start to internally combust, mentally if not physically. Even Sally dourly conceded that the heat might 'limit our activities'. I forbore to observe that since the city website confessed its climate to be 'humid subtropical' the forecast wasn't altogether surprising.
The dispiriting Peter Principle holds that employees get promoted until they no longer exceed expectations, resulting in mature organisations being populated by incompetents. A parallel phenomenon explains why it's so challenging to find clothes to pack for holidays. Most wardrobes host predominantly immaculate but disfavoured clothes; the preferred ones are selected frequently and wear out, leaving a residue of ill-judged impulse purchases which we're loathe to discard as they're still pristine. Finally I adopted the usual stratagem: plan for all eventualities, then double it resulting, as usual, in a drum-tight suitcase.
I had persuaded Sally to abandon her normal brinkmanship involving arrival two minutes before the departure of trains by bribing her with the BA lounge at terminal 5. Ten years after opening, T5 is already acquiring a worn patina. A recent refresh means that it hosts more high-end outlets than Regent Street, confirming its real purpose as a retail mall with a few aircraft incidentally parked outside. But the lounge is less faded grandeur than stained cushions, the main inhabitants being comatose gapyearers crashing on sofas while recovering from illicit weekend breaks at budget accommodation with evocative names such as the G-Spot Party Hostel. The doubtful glamour of club class was further eroded by a delay which segued into a queue behind prioritised long-haul flights. Weekend shopping in Dubai trumps European holidays.
Soothed by celebratory champagne, we glimpsed crystalline Alps and I wondered whether there was any chance of being dropped off early. Snowy outcrops became parched fields and as we descended, the flight deck announced perkily that despite the delay it was still a nice day in Bologna with a temperature of 34C. I winced.
Bologna has the sort of airport that's more like a provincial bus station. As we crossed the tarmac children waved from the terminal. The woman next to us beamed and confided to Sally, they're my grandchildren. Sally nodded, bemused. Our flight was the only arrival but the baggage took an unconscionable time to appear. Passengers clustered around the carousel seething indignantly. Like all travellers, having been impatient to arrive at the present point in their journey they were now equally eager to move on to the next. The rubber flaps partitioning the passengers from the oily side of the airport birthed successive suitcases and I was seized by a momentary desire simply to pick up the nearest. Like the excitement when you realise you've inadvertently acquired another shopper's supermarket trolley, a tempting portal in the thin but impermeable membrane into another life until you spot the corned beef and Mr Kipling cakes.
The airport exhaled us into a waiting bus. Twilight is fleeting in these latitudes and it had grown dark while we were crossing the invisible boundary from not-Italy to Italy in the terminal. We followed the route to the train station on our satnavs as the bus bounced past the obligatory peeling buildings, shuttered against the implacable heat. Indeterminate suburbs, less orderly and more contingent than London sprawl. Abandoned hovels and empty lots bespoke cheaper land and indolent commerce. The encircling crumble of ochre, puce and tangerine, mandatory in any self-respecting medieval Mediterranean city, resolved into a core of municipal buildings. Lounging piazzas were dominated by severe brick churches and palazzos with blank walls and high, barred windows for pampered prisoners of the past.
The walk from the railway station followed the endless arcades for which Bologna is famed. Stores consuming the power of small towns illuminated unpriced, therefore priceless, scraps of high fashion. Away from the grand boulevards, doors large enough for barns and secured with heavy ironware, lend a brooding quality. Towers arise unexpectedly at the ends of vistas framed by colonnades, evoking the unsettling fantasies of de Chirico. Eventually the streets shrink to carless canyons lined by bolted wooden gates emblazoned with menacing graffiti. Grimy grocers, doors ajar, are occupied by sulking owners slumped in front of counters. Number 12 separated a diminutive Odeon from a louche bar. We had arrived.
The dispiriting Peter Principle holds that employees get promoted until they no longer exceed expectations, resulting in mature organisations being populated by incompetents. A parallel phenomenon explains why it's so challenging to find clothes to pack for holidays. Most wardrobes host predominantly immaculate but disfavoured clothes; the preferred ones are selected frequently and wear out, leaving a residue of ill-judged impulse purchases which we're loathe to discard as they're still pristine. Finally I adopted the usual stratagem: plan for all eventualities, then double it resulting, as usual, in a drum-tight suitcase.
I had persuaded Sally to abandon her normal brinkmanship involving arrival two minutes before the departure of trains by bribing her with the BA lounge at terminal 5. Ten years after opening, T5 is already acquiring a worn patina. A recent refresh means that it hosts more high-end outlets than Regent Street, confirming its real purpose as a retail mall with a few aircraft incidentally parked outside. But the lounge is less faded grandeur than stained cushions, the main inhabitants being comatose gapyearers crashing on sofas while recovering from illicit weekend breaks at budget accommodation with evocative names such as the G-Spot Party Hostel. The doubtful glamour of club class was further eroded by a delay which segued into a queue behind prioritised long-haul flights. Weekend shopping in Dubai trumps European holidays.
Soothed by celebratory champagne, we glimpsed crystalline Alps and I wondered whether there was any chance of being dropped off early. Snowy outcrops became parched fields and as we descended, the flight deck announced perkily that despite the delay it was still a nice day in Bologna with a temperature of 34C. I winced.
Bologna has the sort of airport that's more like a provincial bus station. As we crossed the tarmac children waved from the terminal. The woman next to us beamed and confided to Sally, they're my grandchildren. Sally nodded, bemused. Our flight was the only arrival but the baggage took an unconscionable time to appear. Passengers clustered around the carousel seething indignantly. Like all travellers, having been impatient to arrive at the present point in their journey they were now equally eager to move on to the next. The rubber flaps partitioning the passengers from the oily side of the airport birthed successive suitcases and I was seized by a momentary desire simply to pick up the nearest. Like the excitement when you realise you've inadvertently acquired another shopper's supermarket trolley, a tempting portal in the thin but impermeable membrane into another life until you spot the corned beef and Mr Kipling cakes.
The airport exhaled us into a waiting bus. Twilight is fleeting in these latitudes and it had grown dark while we were crossing the invisible boundary from not-Italy to Italy in the terminal. We followed the route to the train station on our satnavs as the bus bounced past the obligatory peeling buildings, shuttered against the implacable heat. Indeterminate suburbs, less orderly and more contingent than London sprawl. Abandoned hovels and empty lots bespoke cheaper land and indolent commerce. The encircling crumble of ochre, puce and tangerine, mandatory in any self-respecting medieval Mediterranean city, resolved into a core of municipal buildings. Lounging piazzas were dominated by severe brick churches and palazzos with blank walls and high, barred windows for pampered prisoners of the past.
The walk from the railway station followed the endless arcades for which Bologna is famed. Stores consuming the power of small towns illuminated unpriced, therefore priceless, scraps of high fashion. Away from the grand boulevards, doors large enough for barns and secured with heavy ironware, lend a brooding quality. Towers arise unexpectedly at the ends of vistas framed by colonnades, evoking the unsettling fantasies of de Chirico. Eventually the streets shrink to carless canyons lined by bolted wooden gates emblazoned with menacing graffiti. Grimy grocers, doors ajar, are occupied by sulking owners slumped in front of counters. Number 12 separated a diminutive Odeon from a louche bar. We had arrived.
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