In Zurich, we went to the Reisebuero Kuoni to pick up our tickets. We had the whole day as the train to Italy left at 9 pm. We took the children to the Zoo had dinner at the Bahnhofbuffet and then telephoned Peters Cousin Koeby. He and his wife Ruth invited us to their apartment and later he brought us to the station. He did not linger. We had been very good friends and he was very sad to see us leave, perhaps forever.
A few minutes before 9 pm the train we waited for arrived. It was awfully long with many carriages. Hurriedly we searched our carriage number. It happened that our carriage was way in front and no porter was around to help us with our heavy luggage. We ran and dragged our suitcases there was no spare time. Peter carried two and a heavy travelling bag. I was struggling with two and the children pushed and heaved each one. The girls and I struggled with ours, the suitcases lost their shine on platform one at the train station in Zurich and got heir initiation scratches early on their tour around the world. Peter, strong and with long legs was way in front and we saw him shoving and pushing his suitcases into the carriage then he ran back to help us.
We really had to run the train was only to stop a few minutes and as everybody knows trains in Switzerland don’t muck around and wait they leave on the dot. We had not yet stowed the suitcases onto the luggage rack when the train shifted its wheels into motion, leaving the net of intertwined rails of the Hauptbahnhof behind, gained quickly speed and left industrial sites and suburbia behind.
We had a first-class compartment and made ourselves comfortable, as we travelled through the night. The express train made few stops and soon we were through the Gotthard tunnel. I tried to get some last glimpses through the window but the southern countryside was already swallowed by the deep shadows of the night and only silvery ripples revealed a river or a lake.
The train passed famous holiday resorts, bustling in the daytime now dark and sleeping. The train arrived at Chiasso where the border official from Italy came into our compartment and checked our passports. He leafed quickly through the red booklets and handed them back to us, wished us a good journey and left.
The train resumed its itinerary; left Switzerland behind and made its way through the still and moonless Italian countryside towards Milan.
I must have had some catnaps as the night had given way to a washed-out bluish morning light suffused with streaky, pale lemon just to tell me the sun was on its way up. We were rushing through tranquil and green, flat countryside scattered with red-tiled farmhouses behind fortified red brick walls. When the train pulled in at Milan Station a greyish, pallid morning greeted us through the ornate glass roof.
To travel to Genoa and further to Viareggio, we had to change the train. Fortunately, there were porters waiting and eager to help us with our seven suitcases and travel bags. The train to Genoa was already waiting. We scanned the windows for a suitable compartment the porter bravely behind us with our load. In a first-class compartment, we found five empty seats. The porter stashed quickly and efficiently our luggage onto the provided racks above the seats. We paid him and gave him a good tip, he said grazie and ciao, he was a trendy young man.
Our entry caused a bit of a commotion and the three people that were already established in their seats looked up with interest and greeted us with a friendly Buon Giorno, then settled back again.
I sank into the plush, wine red upholstery and glanced discretely at our fellow travellers.
A nun and a priest sat side-by-side, murmuring; their gold leaf prayer books on their lap. One other person was a middle-aged man in a dark suit rather well endowed around his girth. His face was now hidden behind Il Corriere and he had more folded newspapers and magazines stashed beside him.
The train left Milan behind and I looked with interest through the window at the verdant, Lombardian countryside. The morning was well advanced and reluctant skies gave
way to a sun playing hide and seek when my children gave me frantic looks and mouthed we are hungry, no we are near starvation and pointed to the well-filled bag.
I could not ignore longer the pleading faces of my daughters and asked Peter to hand me down the bag filled with the food, as we arrived on a Sunday and we did not know if the grocery stores would be open.
As a goodbye present, I had received a wedge of Appenzeller cheese from the cheesemaker in our village, where we used to buy every day fresh milk and cheese, I had packed to take with us.
I opened the bag and a rather strong whiff of a well-matured cheese escaped. The three people opposite looked up, their noses twitched and appreciatively sniffed the air.
Nonetheless, I was embarrassed and quickly zipped the bag shut before the girls could say a peep.
I ignored their pleading faces and rumbling stomachs and only said curtly we will eat later. The tone of my voice pushed them further into the upholstery with a beseeched look in their eyes that naturally as a mother I must say, left me a little uneasy, as we still had such a long way to travel.
The train made its way into Liguria and I was glad when the train arrived in Genoa. The good thing was we did not change trains, so I quickly dashed out to get some lollies and chocolates at a kiosk to harmonise the unhappy vibes that still floated around the bag filled with food stashed above our heads.
Those who wanted to board it replaced soon the rush of people leaving the train.
Some were still hanging on to doors and leaning out of windows to grab suitcases and parcels when the train without further announcement juddered forth and back, quickly found its wheels and rolled out of the gloomy and sooty station of Genoa.
Those who usually travel by trains know that one must always hurry because the train in which you arrive might be late but the one you have to catch leaves on the dot. This sort of arrangements used to give me nightmares when as a student I had to catch trains every day. But the odd thing is I still love travelling by train best of all. I wished I could travel all the way to Australia just by train!
Gradually the train nosed its way out of the tangle of railway lines along houses build precariously near the railway embankment. Their windows flung wide open thus the travellers could see right into the neat bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens.
Freshly laundered washing strung out from the windowsills waved gaily in the breeze to wish us well on our way.
The train followed now the pleasant Riviera di Levante with its famous holiday resorts. The villas clinging to the steep, hilly coast of Rapallo had a splendid view on the Mar Tirreno.
It was a very enjoyable train journey from Genoa to Viareggio, as I was back in the good books, the children pacified with lollies and chocolates. I could now enjoy the scenery that brought back a lot of memories from the holidays I had spent in this area.
We were glad when we reached our near-final destination Viareggio from there it was only a short taxi drive to Lido di Camaiore. The train did not stop long and we had to hurry to unload our suitcases. With the handling of our luggage, we had become cleverer too. We did not struggle and wrestle them again through the narrow passages, we handed them straight through the windows the way the Italians did. It worked very well and we were soon ready for the last leg of our journey.
We approached a taxi to take us to Lido di Camaiore where we had hired an apartment in the Villino Cinzia for six weeks. The taxi chauffeur surveyed our pile of suitcases and said something very rapidly that in any ordinary situation we would not have understood. But with his gesticulations between our baggage and his car boot we understood quickly that we had to hire two taxis to fit all our suitcases and us.
I had written down the address on a piece of paper that I gave to the taxi driver. He looked at the address, turned around the slip of paper like something more informative would materialise. He called one of his colleagues, and then the two taxi drivers had a lengthy discussion together until finely they both agreed to take us to our final destination to the Via F. Cavallotti eight to ten.
The three girls and I with a couple of suitcases travelled in the first taxi and Peter was to follow with the rest of the luggage in the second taxi.
He drove off with much speed and I turned around to be sure Peter followed us in his taxi. We drove for quite a while when the taxi chauffeur said this is via F. Cavallotti, but he had a problem, he did not find the numbers eight to ten. I told him to stop the taxi and Peter caught up with us and asked what happened. We were perplexed and discussed the non-existence of numbers eight to ten. We wondered, looked around and asked each other did we hire an apartment in a non-existent Villino Cinzia? I asked one of the taxi drivers to go into the next house and seek some information about the reclusive numbers eight to ten. He soon returned smiling and explained that these were all new houses they were only about ten years old and they had not yet got their official house numbers. We were relieved that this mystery was so readily solved. Soon afterwards we were delivered with a flourish and set down before the doorsteps at the Villino Cinzia. The arrival of the two taxis, the commotion of opened and shut doors brought out the caretaker who expected us this day and quickly welcomed us and took charge of our luggage, guiding us up to our home for six weeks.
Villino Cinzia
He took us up to two flights of stairs to our apartment and with a grand gesture, he said:” Ecco”! The apartment was spacious and sunny and had more room than we needed. The children chose under lengthy discussions with each other their room to sleep, organised their clothes, their books and their games in the wardrobes.
At the back of the house from our bedroom window, we had a view on one side to houses and gardens and the other side was still rural undeveloped land.
From here I saw that this was a newer build-up area. The new houses were mainly brick buildings all in the same uninteresting, utilitarian style. The yellow ochre walls of old farmhouses that probably had stood here for centuries had not left a trace.
I liked to observe the daily life of the Italian people, which were our neighbours for a short while. Every day in the late afternoon the Signora from the house opposite sang out for her little son Antonio…Aaantonio…Aaantooonio…Toooonio this went on for quite a while until a dark, curly-haired boy came running with a small troop of girls and boys in tow, under a gush of very fast Italian he was scolded into the house and the other children dispersed.
The living room had a balcony facing the front of the house. From there I looked onto the next house that looked new and well cared for was painted a sunny apricot colour that was also the store where we shopped for our groceries. It was a two-story building with the proprietor living in the apartment above the shop. They had a pretty, quite voluptuous looking daughter in her twenties. In the morning she came out onto her balcony that was in our view, so we watched her at her daily ritual, very flamboyantly she laced herself in a frilly pink corset. When we shopped she sat at the till her black eyes dancing and her black curls bouncing, yet demurely she wore a plain flowery overall but we knew that underneath she wore a lacy pink concoction and I think she knew too that we knew! We named her “Kassa Schaetzli” that meant nothing more than “the darling at the till”; we never knew her real name.
In their back garden stood a beautiful, old Persimmon tree, probably the last tree standing from an orchard that had once been planted there. It was glistening orange, every branch loaded with ripe fruits. Then suddenly, early one morning when I looked out of the window, the tree was emptied from its glowing burden its branches outstretched bare, like in agony begging back for its beauty. The fruits bursting with ripeness were waiting for customers in a big basket in the shop.
At this time of year, in autumn, many Italians hunt. Early in the morning, the mist still hovered and veiled the first rays of a watery sun, I saw “il padrone” from the shop, well wrapped up in his khakis with his gun and his dog hike towards the hills. His dog excited, its tongue lolling ran before him in anticipation of the chase. Sometimes I saw him return with his quarry, a hare or a couple of pheasants dangled from his hands.
From our bedroom window, we looked down on a field, some grassland and a small plot of vegetables. An old man came every day and worked in his field. Every day people threw all sorts of rubbish into his nicely tended vegetable garden. Paper, pieces of plastic, fragments of old iron, broken crockery even the odd bicycle wheel. Every day the old man arrived early in the morning to weed and tend his vegetables and he also cleaned up other people’s refuse that had again accumulated overnight. Slowly and quietly he picked up and placed the garbage in his hand-pulled, small cart he used to transport his gardening tools. We greatly admired his patience.
Outside of our bedroom window, along the windowsill were strung a few washing lines to hang out small laundry bits and pieces. Usually when I was hanging out some small washed items the signora from the next house called a few friendly words in very fast Italian, most of it I did not understand, I usually answered si.. si.. bene.. bene.. come sta... Her greetings became longer and longer, her Italian faster and faster and I tried to keep up with more and more si si and bene bene and come sta until I must have said at the wrong time si si and bene bene as her flood of words were abruptly cut short and she got the hint that I did not have a clue what she talked about, from then on she gave up on me and just called over Buon Giorno signora.
On the ground floor of the villino Cinzia lived the caretaker with his wife, two small boys and the nonna.
At mealtimes, the nonna sat usually in the garden with the youngest boy, still a baby, on her lap. On a small table nearby a colourful majolica bowl was full with big, pale macaroni, which she fed one by one to the chubby little chap who opened his small pink mouth like a hungry bird. In the afternoons when the mother went out for a stroll with the two little boys, they wore very beautiful clothes, soft blue knitted pants and jackets with little white lace collars and tiny white and blue shoes. They looked charming, but I did not think they looked fitted out for the sandpit. I always observed that the Italians when they went out with their children or on Sunday outings they wore beautiful clothes, the little girls usually wore colourful dresses with lace, ribbons and stiff petticoats with matching socks and colourful, well-made shoes in soft leather.
Copyright: T.S.
