{"id":9131,"date":"2015-05-05T21:28:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T19:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=9131"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:28:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T19:28:30","slug":"our-journey-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/our-journey-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 2nd May 2015:<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

05:20 a.m. \u201cWake up Geoff!\u201d
\n\u201dNo, go away \u2026\u2026\u2026..\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

05:21 a.m. \u201cGeoff \u2026. wake up!\u201d
\n\u201cGigia \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. NO! <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

05:22 a.m. \u201cGeooooffff \u2026.!\u201d
\n\u201dGigia \u2026 F#\u00e7K OFF or I\u2019ll kill you!\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201dpurr \u2026 purr \u2026 purr \u2026\u201d
\n05:25 a.m. \u201cOkay, I surrender!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Simon's<\/a>

Simon’s Cat<\/strong>. Click on the image to watch the video ‘Cat Man Do’.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

So begins our two and a half day \u2018adventure\u2019, a 1,600 km (1,000 mile) journey by car from our little village in Val d\u2019Antena, Italy to my mother\u2019s house in Suffolk, England. We\u2019ve made this journey many times, but it doesn\u2019t seem to get any easier. Mostly, it consists of mind numbing boredom, broken at intervals by intense moments of frustration and stress. But it also has its funny and even beautiful moments.<\/p>\n

Day One, Early Morning:<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

Upon opening the shutters I’m greeted by the gloomy spectre of low cloud and drizzle. I resist the urge to close them again and curl up in a ball beneath the blankets, grit my teeth, remind myself to take slow calm breaths, and trudge down to the kitchen to feed myself and seven (plus one!) cats. I hear Serena up on the mezzanine, groaning and cursing herself into wakefulness.<\/p>\n

Giorno Uno, Mattina Presto:<\/span><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

Nell\u2019aprire gli scuri vengo salutato dal tetro spettro di nuvole basse e pioviggine. Resisto alla tentazione di richiuderli e raggomitolarmi sotto le coperte, stringo i denti, ricordo a me stesso di respirare calmo e lentamente, e mi trascino gi\u00f9 in cucina per sfamare me e sette (pi\u00f9 uno!) gatti. Sento Serena su nel soppalco, che geme e impreca nel tentativo di svegliarsi.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later: \u2026. a small miracle takes place: in dismal grey fog and drizzle, we enter the long tunnel that takes us across il Passo della Cisa at 750 metres, and emerge to the surprising and encouraging vision of high cotton wool clouds chasing across an azure ocean of sky. Shafts of sunlight pierce through to illuminate the fresh emerald green leaves adorning the surrounding beech woods. For the first time in days, we begin to relax. Fate, at least for now, seems to be our side. On a journey as long as that upon which we have embarked, weather can play a huge factor.<\/p>\n

Pi\u00f9 tardi: \u2026 avviene un piccolo miracolo: in un misto di triste nebbia grigia e pioviggine entriamo nella lunga galleria che ci porta attraverso il Passo della Cisa a 750 m.s.l., ed emergiamo alla visione sorprendente ed incoraggiante di alte nuvole di bambagia ed un oceano azzurro di cielo. Raggi di luce penetrano ad illuminare le giovani foglie verde smeraldo che adornano le faggete circostanti. Per la prima volta da giorni, cominciamo a rilassarci. Il fato, almeno per ora, sembra essere dalla nostra parte. In un viaggio cos\u00ec lungo come quello in cui ci siamo imbarcati, il tempo pu\u00f2 essere un fattore determinante.<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Campagna<\/a>

“Campagna di Soresina”<\/strong> by Grasso83 – self-made. Licensed under CC<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The Pianura Padana, which we must now cross in order to reach the Alps, can be one of the most tedious stages of our journey. Flat, with endless tracts of pencil straight highway, one feels oneself gradually becoming comatose. But it\u2019s early morning, the gaps between the clouds have widened, and the low slanting sunlight brings the normally dull patchwork of the plain to life. Wild poppies mixed with unidentified yellow flowers pepper the verges, and this year\u2019s freshly emerging crops paint the surrounding fields many shades of green. These are complemented by romantic semi-ruined farmhouses and barns built in the predominant pale terracotta brick, and bluish silhouettes of distant and not so distant country churches with their tall bell towers echoing the uprights notes of the indigenous Lombardy Poplars.<\/p>\n

La Pianura Padana, che dobbiamo ora attraversare per poter raggiungere le Alpi, pu\u00f2 essere uno degli stadi pi\u00f9 tediosi del nostro viaggio. Piatta, con un\u2019infinit\u00e0 di tratti d\u2019autostrada dritti come matite, ci si sente divenire comatosi. Ma \u00e8 mattina presto, le aperture fra le nuvole si sono ampliate, e la bassa luce obliqua ravviva il collage di campi della pianura normalmente sbiadito. Papaveri selvatici misti a fiori gialli non identificati vivacizza i bordi della strada, e le colture di quest\u2019anno che iniziano appena a spuntare colorano i campi circostanti di tante sfumature di verde. A completare il quadro le romantiche rovine di fattorie e fienili costruiti predominantemente in mattoni di terracotta chiara, e le silhouette bluastre di pievi pi\u00f9 o meno distanti, con i loro alti campanili che echeggiano i tratti verticali degli indigeni pioppi lombardi.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the northern horizon I begin to see what at first appear to be massive low lying ochre clouds. These gradually transform themselves, becoming more angular in form until I realise that what I\u2019m looking at are the snow covered peaks of the Alps through which our journey will take us. But first, the ring road which skirts the edge of Milano awaits us, and although it\u2019s still early on a Saturday morning we are aware that yesterday was the opening of Expo 2015, and that riots, carried out by the usual group of professional non-peaceful \u2018protesters\u2019, had plagued the day, with shops destroyed and cars set on fire. We begin to notice a preponderance of armoured Police riot vans passing us on the opposite side of the motorway.<\/p>\n

Verso nord all\u2019orizzonte comincio a vedere quello che a prima vista sembrano essere enormi nubi color ocra a bassa quota. Pian piano queste si trasformano, si fanno pi\u00f9 angolari finch\u00e9 non mi rendo conto che ci\u00f2 che sto guardando sono le cime delle Alpi coperte di neve tra cui ci porter\u00e0 il nostro viaggio. Ma per prima cosa ci aspetta la tangenziale che fiancheggia l\u2019estremit\u00e0 di Milano, e bench\u00e9 sia ancora presto di sabato mattina, siamo consapevoli che ieri c\u2019\u00e8 stata l\u2019inaugurazione di Expo 2015, e che tumulti, perpetrati dai soliti gruppi di non-pacifici \u2018manifestanti\u2019 professionisti, aveva afflitto la giornata, con negozi distrutti e macchine date a fuoco. Cominciamo a notare una preponderanza di furgoni corazzati antisommossa della polizia che ci oltrepassano nella direzione opposta dell\u2019autostrada.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Proteste<\/a>

Proteste contro Expo di Milano<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

We prepare ourselves for the possibility of chaos.
\nCi prepariamo per la possibilit\u00e0 di caos.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be continued \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Saturday, 2nd May 2015: 05:20 a.m. \u201cWake up Geoff!\u201d \u201dNo, go away \u2026\u2026\u2026..\u201d 05:21 a.m. \u201cGeoff \u2026. wake up!\u201d \u201cGigia \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. NO! 05:22 a.m. \u201cGeooooffff \u2026.!\u201d \u201dGigia \u2026 F#\u00e7K OFF or I\u2019ll kill you!\u201d \u201dpurr \u2026 purr \u2026 purr \u2026\u201d 05:25 a.m. \u201cOkay, I surrender!\u201d So begins our two and a half day \u2018adventure\u2019, a…<\/p>\n

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