PNG 12 - Teresa Bolga

After 42 years Gabrielle and Teresa met again. Two young women from the 1970s were now two mature women in their mid sixties.

I'd wondered what it was that held such a strong place in Gabrielle's memory, such a strong emotional connection to this person. Since the moment that we touched down at Mt Hagen airfield Gabrielle had been asking each person we met if they knew her. Many knew of her but it was in the KaiKai Coffee Haus where she struck gold. "Yes I know Teresa," the waitress said. "She's my aunty." Gabrielle nearly fell over. "Can you get a message to her? She will know me as Gaye."

Now two days later we're on our way to visit her. We're in the Mt Hagen Mission Home minibus with Vanessa, Teresa's daughter, who is directing Gibson, our muscled Christian driver to her village compound on the edge of town. Gibson is a bit nervous. "It's a bad part of town," he says. "Lots of drugs and bad people." Gibson is a giant of a man who goes to the gym every day and plays rugby league for his province. It's a Iittle incongruous that this gruff footballer should be afraid of anything. As we approach NewTown we are surrounded by a hundred colourful beach umbrellas under which people have spread their wares for sale. Rubbish piles dominate the scene. Everywhere. It's filthy. We have arrived at betel nut central. These are the druggies Gibson was referring to. Bright green arrays of betelnut sit beside plastic bags of lime and sticks of siri pona (timor name).

We turn down a narrow lane and find ourselves in the middle of manicured hedges and compounds of neat bungalows. Teresa's place is only a few hundred metres from the beach umbrella chaos. It's a quiet haven. She is sitting at the entrance to her plot wiith her sister and another relative as we approach. The two girls now in women's bodies changed by time recognize each other instantly. Teresa is on her feet and she takes Gabrielle's hand and leads us to her house. I am the observer and watch as these two relax in each others company as if the forty two years were forty two days.

She and Gabrielle trade questions and offer answers about the past four decades. There a directness about it that belies the soft emotional connection between the two of them. Teresa talks about the hardship of living a subsistence life and complains about corruption and government inaction, implying that forty years on, things are actually worse. She pulls no punches. Once a devoted Catholic, she has become a born again Christian. She became disillusioned with the Catholic Church because she no longer felt an emotional connection to her beliefs. "Too much of it was routine. The priest telling us when to stand and when to sit and say this and say that. The Pentecostals make me feel a connection. I need to have an emotional connection."

The land she lives on is her family's traditional land. Her brother lives in a house adjacent hers, her nephew and his three wives live on the other side. The families share the land which supports a banana grove, orange trees and vegetable plots which they harvest for the market and for their own consumption. It's a simple life.

Teresa's house is tiny. A central room not much bigger than a kitchen is flanked by four rooms which house her daughter and three children in one room, her sister and aunty in another and Teresa in the final bedroom. The last room is the kitchen and storeroom. It's a house of seven women. The central room contains a single soft chair, a double seater lounge and a tv on a stand covered in cloth. At one end, the entrance to the house, is a door. At the other, a matter of three or four paces distant is a window. The room is about two paces across.

Jobs are scarce. There is a lot of talk of work in Australia picking apples. They want us to use our influence to help set up job opportunities for the family. Gabrielle says she will do what she can but makes no promises. Vanessa seems happy at the prospect of leaving her three young children behind for six months. Child rearing seems like an extended family responsibility.

Teresa is poor. There's no other word for it and yet she presses gifts of fruit and hand made bilums on us before we leave.

Over the next days Gabrielle tells everyone the story. And everyone seems to know Teresa. "The red skin?" they ask us, referring to her colouring. Her skin is quite light for a highlander and she seems to have rosy cheeks. Two days later Teresa calls us at our lodge in the mountains. She's determined to see Gabrielle again before she goes.

PNG 8 Mt Hagen Arrival

Gabrielle and I are in Mt Hagen after a disrupted day of flying which saw us sit in the Rabaul Airport terminal for 8 hours and Mick miss his flight to Brisbane.

Mt Hagen seemed like the wild west after sedate Kokopo (though Kokopo itself felt a bit challenging when we arrived a week ago). I often think of Beirut when I feel overwhelmed by chaos and decay (though I've never been there), but Hagen sets its own standard. The roads appear tp have been bombed so large are the potholes, the town is heaving with people none of whom appear to have homes - so many are there on the streets, hanging by the roadside, sitting in open spaces, selling meagre amounts of produce or betel nut on plastic mats by the roadside; the buildings mostly appear to be war surplus and about that old (though only built relatively recently) and everything is coated in a thick layer of dust. It felt threatening. A feral shanty town.

Last night the advice from our hosts at the Mt Hagen Missionary Home (we're travelling as fake missionaries) was a little unsettling. Yes its safe but not at night and not beyond the city centre and make sure you walk confidently, don't look lost or confused and always keep your guard up etc etc. We felt our confidence sapping.

This morning we got the driver at the accomodation to drop us in the town centre which turned out to be one block away. We got out and looked confused and were immediately approached by people not out to rob us but to help. We had a coffee, began to relax and went looking for the house where Gabrielle lived in the 1970s. Gabrielle didn't recognise the surroundings but a couple of blocks from the centre and there it was. Again we looked lost and a group of about ten people came to our aid, one of whom then spent the next three hours shepherding us around town and giving us a tour of the market. We'll see Anna again we hope.

Hagen is the food bowl of PNG so fresh produce was there in abundance along with hand made bilums and traditional bush string cloth and clothing.

We're feeling much more comfortable. Gabrielle has made friends with almost every trader in the market and along the street by taking their photos and we're chasing a couple of contacts we have from Australia. The accomodation is good; we're well and it all feels pretty positive.

A Boston travel story - Nick Fury

My mate Nick in Sydney sent me this story today. I love it. It's very Nick.

 

I'd been in transit from Rome via Madrid and New York for maybe 20 hours when finally, at 11pm, I got to Logan Airport. I'd been in contact with my Australian friend Andy, a native of Boston who was coincidently there at the same time and he might be there to pick me up. Im tired and jet lagged,  No Andy… okay, I'll make my own way.  Change money somewhere and get some coins to make a call in a local pay phone. Its a dollar a go. Three go's; nah, incomprehensible. Foreign country. Try the nice lady at the information desk. My first experience of service in America: impressive: and now I'm speaking to sleepy Andy… "Oh I thought you were getting in tomorrow night… " its actually my mistake: l gave him the right day but the wrong date. It happens. His house is thirty miles away and I don't want him to come out at  this hour so he tells me I can jump the Logan Express and take it all the way to the end, to a place called Framingham where he'll pick me up. 

 

The nice lady tells me there one due in eight minutes. Trip will take half an hour, so see you in forty minutes at Framingham. Sure enough in eight minutes the Logan Express pulls up and there's a big loud lady bus driver who enjoys my accent. I take a seat and watch Boston go by in the night.  I'm the last one left as the bus pulls up at….Braintree…. Oh, you want the red Logan express, this is the green Logan Express…. By now its 12.30am and despite it being her last ride of the night, amazingly she offers to take  me all the way back to the airport. I'm grateful, apologetic and worried that by this time Andy will be at Framingham wondering where I am with no way to contact me. Its dark, the bus terminal is deserted but my driver says "wait a minute, I've got an idea…" She comes back in a couple of minutes. "I've got some good news and some bad news" she says "the bad news is that you are at the opposite end of the city to where you want to be and it will cost you a hundred and ten bucks to get there in a cab, the good news is that this guy (she points to a  shabby car across the road) will do it for fifty five." 

The guy is clueless. I give him the address and he's got no idea. We look for it on google maps on his smart phone but no luck. We call one of his buddies who has a rough idea. I've got Andy's Boston landline, but I know he'll be at the bus stop, waiting for me.  I try it anyway (borrowing the driver's phone) and thank god, his partner Judith picks up. She's from Australia too and can't direct me, but says she'll call Andy at the bus stop and tell him what's going on.  Cut to a bit of the story I heard later:  Andy gets the call and gets the wrong idea, thinking the  driver is dropping me at the house, so he leaves the Bus stop and heads home, twenty minutes away. When he arrives Judith is perplexed: "wheres Nick? 

 

At roughly the same time me and the driver have found our way to Framingham  and we are driving around in circles looking for the bus stop. They have these humungous sprawling shopping malls in the US  and they're not multi storied like here, they just spread out over acres with massive parking fields  that go on to the horizon. The put down point is somewhere in the parking lot, but no sign of Andy.  We do a couple of circuits, nothing. then eventually spot Andy arriving outside of a Denny's dinner. Much gawping, hugs, thank you's and confused apologies. Feels so good to be in the front seat of a car being delivered to a shower and a warm bed.

Bill Clinton and Me

 

This is a story from my trip between Nice and Marseille, the last leg of my Italian adventure.

Rail leg No. 6 Nice to Marseille.

What a cultural shock it must have been for the Italians to arrive in France. Nice, the first stop of this leg of my journey beyond the Italian border, might have been a mere change of trains for them but the language would have suddenly become unintelligible. Even the landscape would have been surprising as the town of Nice cascaded down from the surrounding hills, burnt chalky white by the intense Mediterranean sun. Even in February this place would have been sundrenched.

As I will find out as I travel further, Nice, like Marseille and then Aix en Provence is under construction. Marseille/Provence is the European Capital of Culture for 2013 and it seems the money is flowing and there are major projects under way in each city. The Nice railway station is a grand 19^th Century structure with a soaring glass ceilinged roof. The steel skeleton was designed to be much more than a frame to hold up the roof. Yellow light streams from above while outside, the station is surrounded by ugly barriers and clouds of dust. I’m sure it will be a wonder when it’s completed but today it feels like the in-transit passengers are all crowded into a space half the required size.

There are English, German and Italian voices mixed throughout the ticket hall. It takes me a bit by surprise. I have become used to travelling alone with only the English language in my head and every other person speaking Italian.

The 13:45 train to Marseille is late. This is the first delay I’ve experienced since I began my rail journey in Treviso five days ago. The Italian trains, with a reputation for chaos, bureaucracy, last minute cancellations and delays have all run to time, to the minute. It has been a pleasure. Here I am about to catch my first French train and it arrives 25 minutes late.

I board the nearest carriage as it comes to a stop. Most of the passengers enter and turn to the right, to a carriage cluttered with seats. I go through the glass doors to the left. It looks less crowded. I find myself with a small number of confused travelers all trying to ascertain if this is the ‘standard class’ carriage. We’re asking this because we all really know it’s not, but want an excuse to settle into these lovely large compartments. We don’t have a common language between us. An American arrives and he and I agree to take a risk and plead ignorance when the inspector arrives.

For a short time we have a six berth compartment to ourselves. Soon we are joined by a young Italian mother with her three year old child. An older man I have seen on the Ventimiglia-Nice leg takes a seat opposite her. They know each other.

Gordon, the American, is from LA. He is a Bill Clinton look-a-like. He has the chiseled jaw line, the full head of wavy graying hair, brilliant blue eyes, is a snappy dresser and keeps himself in good shape. I can imagine him seated behind an oval desk in Washington. He is my second celebrity travelling companion. From Milan to Torino I sat across a table from an Italian Richard Gere. He spent much of that hour-long journey staring at me as if I were from an unfamiliar planet. Perhaps my dress code gave me away as not belonging on the up-market Eurostar. Richard sported the requisite designer stubble, distinguished grey collar length hair and a stylish sports jacket. At one point I asked him if he spoke English thinking that he might be signaling an interest in a conversation. But Richard merely shrugged at my question and continued to stare.

Bill, on the other hand, has a story to tell. He travels the world selling equipment to major science and   research agencies who need electronic or computer based systems.  NASA is one of his clients. It takes up to a year to secure a sale, such is the process of building a relationship, assessing the needs of the client, modifying the product to their specifications etc etc. He’s not short of a dollar and he loves travelling.

But his real story is of triumph over adversity and a passion to share his experiences with the world.

Born in South Africa to Afrikaans parents he fled, at the age of 23 to the United States. There he worked illegally for a period before eventually getting his green card and making his way from working in kitchens to travelling the world. At this stage he told me, for the first time, how many countries he had visited. He was like someone who can’t believe their luck and keeps repeating the information, not so much to impress others, but to convince himself that it really is true.

In South Africa he had led a life full of risk and in the USA he continued to devour all that life could offer. ‘The only thing I’ve never done is stick a needle in my arm’ he told me.

He’s left school before graduating and had never done any further study. He was a survivor. And now this had become his passion, his story of survival. He felt so lucky to have survived that he was committed to sharing his journey as a lesson in life for future generations. I’ve written a book’ he tells me proudly. It’s a book about what I learnt along the way’. He wants young people to learn some of the street skills that got him through and to avoid some of the pitfalls and dead ends. He has a website. “streetsmartkids” on which he is developing a series of life-lessons to accompany his book. Bill talks, nonstop. But he’s not one of those who ‘s convinced himself that he knows everything. He is still on a learning journey. There’s a strange vulnerability to him. I feel free to interrupt him and share some of my experiences of working with young people. We’ve found a common theme.

I tell him about the Brisbane school I’ve worked with over a ten year period. About our concept of a school as a family, a community with responsibilities as well as rights embedded in its ethos. His story is about survival distilled to a ‘How to’ guide. He’s interested in other ideas because he’s still working it out.

The French ticket inspector arrives and Bill immediately starts a conversation with him (in English). He notes that the train was late and what might have been the cause. He asks if he can help with the bags of a woman who has entered the carriage having just climbed aboard at Roquebrune Cap Martin. The guard is diverted from his task, is charmed by Bill, despite not understanding a word of his west coast spiel. He inspects our tickets and without comment moves on. I’m not sure if this means we were in the correct carriage anyway but Bill prefers to think it is his street savvy that has worked for us. Either way we can relax.

‘Did you notice what I just did?’ says Bill. I nod. ‘Yep’ I respond positively. He’s demonstrating to me some of the ‘street smart’ skills he’s developed. It helps to look like Bill Clinton and have the brash confidence of the Americans. I am always taken aback by the assumption made by many of my American cousins that implies that the rest of the world has been living under a rock for the past 200 years while they have accumulated all the wisdom and colonized the planet. Or perhaps my Australian preference to assume a more understated role holds me back?

The conversation segues to travel and family. We share stories of our wives, our youth, meeting our partners, the secrets of good relationships, children, men and the limits of men’s understanding of relationships, of the Monica Lewinsky moments which can ruin your life and of tolerant, wise and forgiving life partners. I hope Bill doesn’t have a blog. I’m being far too honest with him.

Bill is married to a woman of Iranian descent; I’m married to an Aussie with deep Irish roots. Between us our families are connected to four continents and seven countries. I have no Italian beyond my tourist phrases and Bill, thankfully, has few traces of his Afrikaans accent – one of the few accents which triggers in me an inherent racist element buried deep within my psyche.

Bill is not one to sit still. When he pauses he is on his feet in the corridor wanting to get a closer look at the Mediterranean coastline. He takes photos of everything on his phone. I join him and we photograph together. And talk. He wants to understand the rules of Australian football. He’s seen it on TV and can’t make head nor tail of it but gets that it is an exceptionally physical game demanding incredible stamina. I try and help him. Explaining the scoring system just about does my head in. I try to help by likening it to a combination of soccer, rugby, American and Gaelic football with less rules then add that it may have also developed from our Indigenous brothers. He nods his head. Meanwhile the three year old has decided that Bill’s luggage is play equipment and has colonized his seat as a playground.

He seems like an intelligent man and a strong humanist but when he talks about guns and the right to bear arms I am nonplussed. Kill or be killed he explains .’Have you ever been in such a situation?’  I am seeking to understand what motivated this fear. ‘No.’ It is just an article of faith. ‘I’d prefer to be prepared.’ He says. I don’t push it. I suggest that other nations don’t seem to have this need. It’s like water off a duck shooters back. It’s chicken and egg. There are guns, so I need a gun.

Towards the last forty minutes of the journey Gordon/Bill is getting a little jumpy. He has a 5pm flight from Marseille airport to Frankfurt and we’re losing time not gaining. It will be after 4pm when we pull into St Charles Station and the airport is a good twenty-five minutes by bus or car.

The middle part of his story he shares with me over this last leg. He’s arrived in the USA, played hard, survived the drugs, the street battles, the uncertainty of being an outsider with no prospects; no one to call upon but himself and he’s found a way through. He has reinvented himself through sheer force of will and determination. He looks back and can now breathe easily but he will never forget the struggle. On becoming a citizen he begins to work on convincing his siblings and his parents to join him and, twenty years after he fled South Africa to make a new life, the family is reunited. 

He hasn't forgotten. He is still somewhat incredulous that he now travels the world to that list of 40 odd countries he has given me but he would give it all away tomorrow if he could get his ‘streetsmartkids’ concept to take flight.

At Marseilles he makes a run for it. He’s the first off the train, his gray head tall among the crowd. I lose sight of him before I am even able to gather my meager belongings and alight.

That night I send him an email and he replies.  

“Thanks Steve, grabbed a taxi, was on time and then the flight was delayed, but arrived safely in Frankfurt, so nothing else matters :)...even ate the very crappy sandwich they gave us, yuck! (something you'd find at a petrol station)

I really enjoyed out chat and wish you all the best

Take care”

Gordon Myers
Street Smart Kids.
 

Train travel. Sometimes it’s just magic. I can’t imagine having the same conversation on a plane.

Arles - Caravans and Clouds

 Arles. I didn't expect it to be more than a city surviving on its connections with Van Gogh and the Romans. What a surprise. Yes it has the places Van Gogh painted. The yellow cafe surrounded by Japanese tourists taking photost.The hospital and its garden where he spent time when he was having his mental health troubles

There's an impressive Roman arena and a Roman Theatre but I didn't expect a Museum of contemporary art in an ancient building donated to the city by Picasso. It featurred an exhibition themed around clouds. What artists see and do with clouds is quite amazing.

Finally, as part of the Marseille and Provence European Capital of Culture it is hosting a maze of  photography exhibitions - over 50 individual exhibitions paying homage to past and contemporary black and white photography. I saw two which excited me. The first was a collaborative showing in a series of shopfronts and basements aroound the theme of caravans and caravan holidays. It was familiar, whimsical and both innocent and savvy (complete with a caravan in the square nearby).

The second was a South American, Sergio Larrain, who documented the lives of people across the nations of S America in the 50s and 60s. He has such a good eye and a wonderful sense of composition. It made me realise what is missing from most of my photos - light, composition, form, and soething intangible, a story element which he captures every time. Check him out.

Oh, and Arles is a beautiful town on the Rhone by the way.

Cezanne and Lorenzo

St Victoire - the motif ocurring throughout the work of Cezanne.

 I might be pushing it a bit but Cezanne was born in Aix in 1939 just two years after Lorenzo was born in Brugnera, Italy.

It was an era of transition. Cezanne and his artist colleagues were seeking new forms and new visions. They (Van Gough, Matisse, Gauguin, Bonnard and later Picasso and others) gathered in the south of France, inspired by its light, its beauty and its hisory to paint and experiment as artists had never done before.. Foe them it was an 'arcadia', a golden vision of romantic perfection.

Cezanne is regarded as the father of modern art as it evolved from classic representational art through the impressionists and finally to cubism and abstract art. He is said (by his contemporaries) to  have begun the journey. It's been great to follow this story through the streets of Aix and through two excellent exhibitions - one in Aix and the other in Marseille.

Now, Lorenzo and the italians were travelling this part of the world as these new ideas were emerging and I suspect that, though they would not have been aware of any of these artists, they were nevertheless infected by the romantic stories and arcadian visions of the South Pacific and the utopian dreams of Europe when it came to imagining this distant idyll. In a very weird way Lorenzo and his family and friends were caught up in, not only their struggle to escape poverty, but also a quest for a dream of something new and different. Their utopia. their arcadia.

Cezanne

Aix en Provence - Ou est la salle du bains

 Ou est la salle du bains? Voila.

Moe, who is Persian and lives in Texas in the USA, has created a little bit of his original homeland in the centre of one of the oldest cities in France. Aix was settled by the Romans while Maeseille was suill a Greek stronghold. In fact the Greeks had invited the Romans to assist them to quell the maurading nothern celts. They didn't expect the romans to stay. The floor of the apartment is wall to wall Persian carpet by the way.

 And this is the view from the window of Moe's apartment and ours for 8 days.

Federica's menagerie - One memorable encounter a day

The thing I like about travel is the surprises. If I have one memorable encounter a day. I'm over the moon.

Its a pretty high aspiration but I am on target this trip.

Let me list the highlights:
Orsago - The Post Office incident (and many others)
Treviso - The St Ursula frescoes
Verona - The Paul McCartney concert in the Roman Arena
Bergamo - Marcos 200 year old family apartment
Torino - Federica
Ventimiglia - The drinking game at the bar in the old city
Marseille - Discovering the Hospice de La Charite (Thanks Bertrand)

Federica lives atop a five story apartment building in the centre of Torina, a block from the Piazza Maria Vittoria the largest piazza in the city. Federica lived here with her mother for many years until she sadly passed away. She bubbles and fizzes like the Italians of my imagination. She welcomes me generously offering me anything in her fridge, gives me some good tips for my one day in her city and then offers to cook for me that evening. She loves cooking and she loves company, but this offer is extraordinary. I have merely rented a room from her for the night at rock-bottom price. This is not part of the bargain I expected.

She has two guests staying and the other young man is rather reclusive, only emerging from his room to enter and leave the apartment. Me, I am up for a good chat.  When she has two guests she sleeps in the living room on the couch with her two cats and giant dog. The other member of the family, a guinea pig stays in the bathroom. Federica is doing it tough. The economy is not good, jobs are scarce, she senses that she needs to shift gear. To begin a new project in her life. She tells me she is waiting for a call to confirm her acceptance into a full time chef school.

But I must pause and introduce the family. Dea (God - not an intentional piece of dyslexic naming I'm pretty certain) is a 13 year old lady who continues to enjoy a good life despite a large tumour which Federica has determined to leave take its course - any medical intervention would mean the loss of its leg and, as Federica says, I can't have a three legged dog in a fifth story apartment. Next are the cats. Wilson  is a very large cat, puma size. Vincent (after Van Gogh), a small black ball of fluff. Frankie is the black and white guinea pig. When you come to Federica's place you come for the full experience.

Dea

Wilson

Vincent

Frankie

I go for a walk and four hours later return to find Federica in high spirits. She has been accepted into her course and starts tomorrow. Talk about short notice! I buy a bottle of vino rosso and we eat spaghetti carbonara and a vegeterian bean dish on the terrace and chat. She is concerned about how she will survive for the next 12 months as the course is 8 hours a day and is hands on. She will need to get a job that fits her schedule. Her Air B&B room will supplement her income but is not sufficient. I also find out that she will turn 29 on July 2nd - a few days away.

It's pretty obvious she has charmed me stupid. I want to adopt her and take her home. My paternal instincts make me want to save her but she is quite capable of saving herself. Sometimes a day can be a long time in one's life. This is one of them.

She leaves before me the next morning, dressed to kill. I take some photos. She says it feels like the first day of school - photos and all. Before I go I buy another bottle of wine and leave it as a birthday present.

May your life be full and incredible Federica. If you come to Australia there is a room in my house, a cat and a kitchen in which I will cook for you.

Federica ready for her first day at "school"

Federica in her kitchen

Marseille - Hospice de la Charite

 When Lorenzo and family arrived in Marseille the city was going through a boom. A golden period. It had become the port of all ports in the western Mediterranean. The city was full of busnissmen and entrepreneurs ........ and Italians - 52,000 of the total population of 300,000. The port was not only the point where the riches of the east arrived - the Suez Canal had only recently been completed giving Marseille traders unprecedented access to that wealth - but it was also the port of exit for hugh numbers of economic emigrants from Italy.

Where once there had been a safe but small harbour where the Greek and Roman empires had established a presence now, the city created a huge artificial harbour to cater to a larger volume of merchandise and a larger size  and number of ships.

Not a convent but rooms for the poor in large numbers

.In the 17th Century the local catholic community had built a large institution to house the poor and homeless. It was still operating in the 19th century and is situated in the old city behind the harbour, one of the only old parts of Maeseille not to have been deliberately demolished by the Germans during WWII. My guide for the day, Bertrand, suggested that the family may have spend time here on arrival.

 Today the original harbour is the playground of the rich and famous and is crammed with boats big and small. Below is the view from Bertrand's balcony. He is a lucky man and very generous. He spent six hours accompanying me around the old city and had done an amazing amount of preparation relevant to my quest. He had developed a personalised itinerary based on his understanding of what Lorenzo and his compatriots may have experienced. Thank you Bertrand.

Torino - Two sides to every city

These two scenes were not more than 200 metres apart.

Ventimiglia II - Il Bar

a drinking game that baffled me

There is Ventimiglia old and new. The new is full of vacationers who laze by the Mediterranean and drink at fancy bars and caffes.


They stay in hideous five story block-houses built on the flats facing the sea. No, I have gone too dfar. There is a charm to this place. Only a stones throw away from the French Riviera, Canne.and Monaco it is really a haven. from that madness. It just feels very busy after my quiet village experiences of the last week. Even Torino was low key - small numbers of tourists spread over a large area. Here they are concentrated.   

On the hill only 400 metres away is the old walled Ventimiglia, A bustling enclave of locals. It lives its days laregely oblivious to the tourists. There's nothing glitz and glam here and no nic nacs that diminish the authenticity of any place. I had the lanes and alleyways to myself. I got drenched in a late aftewrnoon thunderstorm and found myself in a litttle bar on the main cobbled street.

No carbon price here.

I ordered a vino rosso and hung around watching. There were a lot of men inside, and a lot of noise and chat, both good signs. The only women were behind the bar. There were 14 of them sitting around a group of tables. They had a deck of cards and were playing some sort of drinking game. They ranged in age from their thirties to their seventies.

I had no idea how the game worrked it seemed like a dare and win or bluff game. Drinks were lined up; cards were laid out (not dealt around the table). There was a lot of noisy shouting and banter and reference to the fall of the cards and eventually one of two seemed to be declared the winners and these two first drank (no skulling) followed by some but not everybody else. The champion was pointed out to me.

At one point things became a little heated. I couldn't tell if it was merely Italian exuberance or genuine discord. It looked and sounded pretty serious to me as more and more of the group joined in the fracas and eventuallyy one of the main protagonists got up and left.It seemed to be about the 'spirit of the game', how the round had been played.

Outside the barman was stoking up a charcoal fired grill which was smoking the place out. I wiould have stayed for a goat kebab but I knew it would be another hour before the food was produced. So I reluctantly took my leave.                                                                                                                    

If there's a theme emerging from this trip it is about the insiders and outsiders; the locals and the visitors; the haves and the have nots. In Ventimiglia this was about the culture of local life contrasted with the tourist culture of the visitors, myself included.

Torino

Turin (Torino) was the first capital of the new united Italy in 1860 (Florence and finally Rome followed as capitals). It has a musty air of grandeur. a sense that it's best days are in the past. The streets are grand, reminiscent of Paris and Lisbon, the piazzas and gardens impressive but it feels a little bit tired.

 There is wealth and there is the life of the ordinary people (more of that in another post). There are tourists but it's not crawling with them. My accommodation in a small apartment with Federica and her menagerie of pets is one block from the main Piazza and has behind it the immigrant precinct. It's a pretty interesting area.

Italy celebrated its 150th anniversary as a nation in 2011 - not that much older than Australia in formal nationhood terms but dramatically different in every other way. This art work sits outside the Gallery of Modern Art and is one artist's reflection on 150 years as a nation.