Meet me in Milan, now there’s an offer not to be missed. You’ve never been to Milan? Oh you must. Let me show you – La Gazzella.

My latest escape from Blighty – starting in Milan

Milan-Trieste-Vienna – about the same distance as London to Edinburgh, though the journey covers three countries & my destinations are three key cities that once were all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I begin in Milan which I had no more than a vague recollection had once been Austrian. The Hapsburgs held it for more than a century and a half ( with the exception of a decade when Napoleon temporarily took over). A few days in Milan then it’s a train to Trieste, ancient city by the sea & once Austrias jewel on the Adriatic ( though Venice was also Austrian for a while ). From Trieste onwards through Slovenia to Austria, a breathtaking landscape of mountains and forests. To my shame all I know about Slovenia is that they have a lot of bears & that it’s where Melania Trump comes from. I hope to overcome this lack of knowledge at some point.

I couldn’t see Melania Trumps statue as someone has nicked it, a shame really as it looked like a really crap sculpture and I’d like to have seen it if only for the amusement factor. But then it probably made good kindling for some Slovenian fireplace, so it ended up being useful. But them bears, them I’d like to have seen, however no time to spare it was straight through Slovenia with only time to stop for a pee and then on to Austria & Vienna, home of the Hapsburg Empire.

Milan I had never been to before, the closest I came was a mad dash from the South of France to Florence over thirty years ago, a high speed zip around the ring road that circles the City. Back then I just saw the tower blocks and spires in the distance, I think I wondered if I’d ever go to Milan, if there would be a reason to.

Thirty years later there was a reason.

I’m often told I compare everything to England, and here I go again, the metro from the airport is easy, the underground is clean and efficient, the tram gets me close to the apartment I’m staying in. the infrastructure feels better than at home. I nevertheless still arrive sticky and sweaty and slightly irritable, there’s a bar at the end of my road and I’m too early to check in, so it’s beer at the Walrus Bar. There’s graffiti on the walls, the barmaid has tattoos and a ring through her nose. It’s perfect.

Did I say a beer, two in fact, and the barmaid barperson ( trying not to show my age and gender bias ) brings me snacks to go with my beer, bloody civilised these Milanese, that wouldn’t happen in England.

Then it’s off to the apartment – down a cobbled street to enormous & ancient wooden front doors that lead down a little labyrinth of corridors past the caretakers flat with a little brass name plaque then to an antique lift.

The apartment is cosy, balconies rear and fronting the street. An old church is opposite, a brick bell tower. If I crane my neck left I can see the canal two hundred metres away, it is full of waterside bars and restaurants. The church bells chime, I look down into the street and watch the passers by from my eerie. The sound carries perfectly and if I were one that liked to hear some gossip this would be the perfect spot. For a little while I imagine myself Italian, or a resident of Milan even, some ex-pat wanderer settled in the city living here from day to day.

The few days go by in a whirl, museums, churches, restaurants, bars. Prosecco, Gelato & an awful lot of coffee, sight-seeing and schlepping around town. Quite early on I notice those little brass plaques set into the pavement, another reminder of the past that I’ve seen in so many other places, I try not to let them register, but they get to me just a bit and I wonder how it happens all over again, with new players playing a similar game.

When I spoke to my sister about my trip I mentioned Milan, she immediately piped up and said La Scala, that was her dream at music college, to be in the Orchestra at La Scala.

I went, just to see, but the season hasn’t started and the joint was all locked up.

The Rinascente Milano, think Selfridges Milan style, the department store. There I find the perfect coffee pot, The Bialetti, nothing on this earth makes a cup of coffee like one of these coffee pots, I had one, but left it somewhere on my travels & ever since I’ve not been able to make a proper cup of coffee from a proper coffee pot.

The moka pot was named after a Yemeni City, and though it became popular in Italy from the 1930’s with Bialetti and others designs it was surprisingly invented by an Englishman, Samuel Parker in 1833. Anyway that aside, and the fact not withstanding that I could probably have bought it on Amazon but am happier not to have given that twat Besos any more money than he already has me and my coffee pot are going to Trieste on the train.

What dod I think of Milan? I liked it, could have spent longer & thought it was pretty cool. This idea was cemented on a trip to the Duomo, a statue of a long gone Cardinal, he’s wearing shades and giving the finger, now is that cool or what?

Only in Milan