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greenbagjosh · 9 months

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Saturday 25 July 1998 - through the old Gotthard tunnel and Polenta line - don’t feed the birds at Duomo - Keglevich is the vodka that “voleviches”

Saturday 25 July 1998

Guten Morgen! Buon Giorno!

Today, twenty years ago, we go to Chiasso 🇨🇭 and further on to Milan, Italy. 🇮🇹 Here is a summary of today's journey, before going into detail. - breakfast at the hostel 🧀🍞☕🍽️ - tram ride to Zürich HB 🚈 - Catch 8:30 AM train from Zürich HB platform 12 to Chiasso🚊 - Arrive 12:30 PM in Chiasso, explore until approx 1:45 PM - Take 2 PM train to Milan, arrive about 3 PM. Arrive at hostel at 4 PM - Go into town, buy a temporary replacement camera - Go to Duomo, feed the pigeons with bird seed. - Buy a music tape (this is 1998 and tapes are still for sale) - Take metro to San Donato just to see - nighttime adventure along the M2 to Crescenzago - and what happens at the hostel at 11:45 PM That was the summary for Saturday 25 July 1998.

And now the details of Saturday 25 July 1998 I woke up around 6:30 AM, as the hostel in Zürich started breakfast at 6 AM. Two interesting points for breakfast, one there was an espresso machine that could dispense a variety of drinks, and was free of charge for breakfast, 2 Francs a cup otherwise. Two, the camembert cheese offered was excellent. Other things were similar to what I had before, even corn flakes in case guests from USA get "homesick". They did not start serving the miso soup and rice as breakfast items until at least 2011.

Because I was in a pre-renovation 6-bed dorm, I had to use the shared showers. The water flow was controlled by a button, you have to press it in and it gives water for about thirty seconds.

Checking out was straightforward. I had a Hostelling International booklet for hostel stamps and I received a stamp for Zürich. Since my bus pass was still valid until 12:30 PM, I took the tram 7 to Zürich HB with both my day bag and clothes bag. Also I marked my Eurail pass as 25 on top and 07 on the bottom, so it would be valid. On track 12, was the train for Chiasso in the Ticino. Chiasso is immediately at the Italian border. The train I boarded did not have air conditioning, as SBB did not standardize it until about 2010. It was still possible to pull down the window using handles. The car looked something like this: http://www.railfaneurope.net/.../00.../120206-106.jpg.jpg

On the camera situation, the Samsung Evoca 115, was up to 24th July 1998 a very good 35 mm camera. It had the most use from 26th May to 24th July. I took a few more photos of places I passed, using the 115 mm focal length and the "macro" focus setting, it worked for a while but finally it gave up. I decided later that day to get a cheap one in Milan.

The train was medium-fast. It did not stop everywhere. It stopped only at Zug (I think it was around 9 AM when the train reached there), Arth-Goldau in Kanton Schwyz, nonstop until Bellinzona in the Ticino, Lugano and finally Chiasso. Between Zürich and Zug, at least in 1998, the train passed by the west bank of Lake Zürich before crossing southwestward to Zug. After Arth-Goldau and Erstfeld, the train made its climb to the Gotthard pass, with some nice scenery. At Göschenen, the train went into tunnel for about 15 minutes, and emerged at Airolo in the Ticino, then it did a ten-mile step down. For example, at Lavorgo, the train makes two clockwise loops before continuing. It is a flat journey until Bellinzona and Giubiasco where there is a ramp to the Ceneri step-up, stays flat to Lugano and eases down to the eponymous lake and Mendrisio, close to the road that leads to the Italian external territory of Campione, Mendrisio and finally Chiasso. Chiasso is where many trains turn back, and there are one or two tracks there, that use the Italian electric feed, others use the standard Swiss voltage.

The last time I had visited Chiasso, was late June 1987. This time in 1998 it did not seem like much had changed. While exploring Chiasso, I took note of the prices. While they seemed a "bargain" compared to Zürich, they seemed high compared to Italy. Most places from 12 to 2 PM are closed in Chiasso, following the Spanish/Italian customs. There was a Manor store that had a grocery department, so I bought a bread roll, prosciutto ham and cheese, and a Schweppes lemon tonic water to drink. As for the camera, it was on its last legs, I managed to get photos of the Chiesa parrocchiale San Vitale martire and the FFS rail station, but not much else. When it was time to head to Milan, I had to go through the customs hall and board at track 1. The border guards did not stamp my passport at the time, they usually reserved that for those entering and exiting on a visa. When the train arrived about 2:05 PM, I boarded the first class panorama cabin and sat on the left side. It had large curved windows and was air conditioned. The train took a few minutes to reach Como San Giovanni. After Como San Giovanni, the train only stopped at Monza, then Sesto San Giovanni before terminating at Milano Centrale. Between Como and Milano, the terrain is generally flat, hills here and there.

The last photo I took with the camera before it died, was a view of Como. Then it was time to rely on the Aiwa HS-JS 475, to get audio footage, I think I used three C-90 tapes for live recording and FM broadcasts. Some songs I remember along the way from Chiasso to Milan, were "Ho messo via" (I put away) by Ligabue and "Half a minute" by Matt Bianco. Since I would not start learning Italian until August 1998, I had to guess what I was listening to, and pretend that I could understand. I did not have much opportunity to listen to the news that day, but I heard that Italy’s 🚲🇮🇹 Daniele Nardello won the yellow jersey in that day’s Tour de France stage.

Upon arrival at Stazione Centrale, I bought a day pass for 4,500 Lire. Same as Zürich, the Milano metro pass was valid from the time of first stamping. Reentering the metro, requires going to a desk and showing the official the valid ticket and they let me in. Note, the conversion rate is 1 Euro to 1,940 Lire, so about a 1:2000 ratio roughly. US Dollars were about $1 = 1,650 Lire, Swiss Francs a little less, say CHF 1 = 1,480 Lire. I did not have much cash left over, so I had to be careful - and no suppers at Biffi!

A couple of things happened between July 1997 and July 1998. First the 1,000 Lire note that I remembered from June 1987, no longer had Marco Polo. It was replaced by the image of Maria Montessori. Second, a new underground suburban rail line had been completed, metro tickets were valid inside Milan. Basically to see how useful it would be for future visits.

Since I had previously visited Milan in July 1997, I thought I could make a more direct journey between Centrale Stazione and QT8 near the San Siro ⚽ stadium where the hostel was located. To do that, I would need to take the metro line 2 to Cadorna and then change at Cadorna to a line 1 for Molino Dorino (Golden mill), not for Bisceglie. The hostel was almost halfway between QT8 and Lotto. This hostel was the same one I visited on 5th July 1997. I had arrived minutes before the hostel was to be opened, as it was open only from 4 PM to 12 AM, and again from 7 AM to 10 AM. Once it was opened, I checked in, got my bed assignment, left the clothes bag, and about 4:30 PM I went back into town, walking to Lotto instead of QT8 as it made more sense.

In Italy, stores are open until about 9 PM on Saturdays, to make up for being closed between 12 PM and 2 PM. At somewhere close to the Duomo I found a camera shop that sold fairly priced cameras. I found one for just 26.000 Lire, others were over 40,000 Lire. It was a simple point and shoot and manual advance camera, flash required two AA batteries. I think one detail I missed, was that the film has to also be threaded so that the spindle would catch. It would take me a few tries to get it right, and even then, not until Friday 31st July. For that reason, between 25th and 31st July there were no photos available. For the time, I pretended that everything was fine. I visited also in September 2000 to make up for the lost photos, and again April 2001, August 2003, August 2004 and September 2011, so I think everywhere I went in July 1998, I have photographed in those later times. And I at least know where the Pirelli building is in relation to the Centrale Stazione

I went to the Duomo, where feeding the birds was technically legal. I did not plan to feed the birds but some man put bird seed in my hand for 10,000 Lire. Probably a thousand pigeons jumped up on my bird-seed filled hands and grabbed the seeds. The more frightening thing were the pigeons claws, and so many of them. Since 25th July 1998 I have not done that anymore, as I thought, one time like that is enough.

After the pigeon feeding, there was still the Virgin Megastore open to sell music CDs and tapes. Since July 1997 I liked to buy Italian music. Already I had Pooh and Jovanotti. This time I bought the eponymous cassette tape for about 16,000 Lire "Lisa". It was on sale as most everything else was 20,000 Lire for tapes, 25,000 and up for CDs. Photo: https://i.imgur.com/9Gp0yyr.jpg Lisa looked like Britney Spears in her "Hit me baby one more time" period. The tape has ten songs in Italian, one of which a cover version of Smokey Robinson's "Just to see her" called "un fiore in te". Video of one of the songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NoISIe1r2Q That was the only one I bought in Italy, though a few weeks later I bought "Lei, gli amici e tutto il resto" by Nek and "Le cose che vivi" by Laura Pausini. I thought about going inside the department store La Rinascente right next to the Galeria Vittorio Emanuele, but could not think of anything to buy there that day.

I wanted to do some more metro adventures. To see the Castello Sforzesco, I would need to take Metro Line 1 to Cairoli. That has a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi on a horse. The castle has its typical Lombard style of narrow-square on top of wide-square, sometimes with a little overhang. If you know about the Torre Velasca, it is a half mile south of Duomo and is built similarly like the tower of Castello Sforzesco, a short wide on tall narrow design. I took the M2 from nearby Cadorna, to Centrale Stazione, took advantage of the McDonalds 1,000 Lire deals, hamburger, soft drink and soft serve cone at 1,000 Lire each - not my idea of cusine but when you are a week away from payday, you may have to make do with McDonalds. One new item they had was the McPink, basically a hamburger made out of mild pork sausage. I had one for 2,000 Lire and it was good. After that, I wanted to see the south end of the M3, namely San Donato, as I had already been to Zara station in July 1997. The M3 trains were at the time the latest and greatest, most of the M1 and M2 stock were either the originals from the 1960s or refurbished. And they were compatible with the M2 and M1 lines in general, due to the connections between Repubblica, Caiazzo, and Pasteur, completely bypassing Centrale and Loreto. San Donato turned out to be just a park and ride station, but the ride was interesting. Also I took the M3 back to Centrale Stazione and transferred to the M2, so I could see the apartment building flats between Cimiano and Crescenzago. Both stations still have the central platform so I could easily turn back with no problem. It was getting around 11 PM, so I would need to head back soon to not miss the curfew at 12 PM. I made a pit stop at Centrale Stazione, took the M2 to Cadorna, M1 to QT8 and made it inside the hostel about 11:40 PM. I washed up and went to bed. The room light was still on until about 11:50 PM when it shut off aside from a dim night light. Then everyone inside had to be quiet until about 7 AM, when it would be time for "la colazione". 🍽️🍞🥐☕

I went to bed and had the radio record some Italo-dance station. I think I recorded about an hour of it. That is the extent of that youth hostel entertainment, bring your own radio and enjoy. Oh well.

Tomorrow will be a long day, train leaves at 1 PM for Verona and on to Bolzano and via Innsbruck back to München. There will be at least some pizza eaten but not much.

Buona notte! A domani!

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