Travel | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

May

Old gold in Toscano

I now know why Milano Centrale railway station smells like a large urinal: because the toilets cost E1 entrance! We were all titillated with the news that it cost a pound to ‘spend a penny’ in London’s Harrods, but this is not quite the same experience. It even has electronic gates like the metro stations.

The next leg of the Italian trip is a walk through Tuscany. The train journey from Milano to Buonconvento in southern Tuscany was the first day of drizzling rain that miraculously held off during Milan’s design festival, much of which was open to the elements.

Encouragingly, even the locals on the regional train bound for Sienna don’t know the starting town of Buonconvento. Perhaps it really is undiscovered. My scepticism radar is switched on high, though…

Ahhh, lovely, lovely Italy. Blessed is the country that gives hope to those of us plagued by the advent of aging. It’s a land where short, fat old people are papparazzi’d by amateur photographers in the narrow streets.

To illustrate: I’m standing at the atmospheric medieval gates of bucolic Buonconvento’s when the stout backsides and black dresses of two old ladies prove too much, and they are snapped relentlessly by a bevy of tourists at as they chat about the things old Italian ladies chat about – flowers in the church, grandchild one-upmanship, Sex and the City…

The places to go for internet on this trip included a very nice bar in Montelcino that sells the local superstar wine, Brunello de Montelcino, by the glass in a range of vintages. Unfortunately, it also came with the resident barfly, Massimo, who tried to ply me with cheap pro secco and stand behind my shoulder to watch me working. If he didn’t have a few ‘roos loose in the top paddock, I would have smacked his chops.

May

Close encounters

The crush of the design precinct ZonaTortona was so great, it took 15 minutes to walk the tiny footbridge from the railway tracks to via Tortona the other night. The crush was mighty. The man behind me was squished to me a level of closeness normally associated with three dates and dinner.

Never have I seen such an obsession with design. Last year, it was amazing to see some queues into the public exhibitions during Melbourne Design Week but this took it to a whole new level, with hundreds on the streets drinking (but never drunk) and eating panini (that’s Italian for toasted ham and cheese rolls), dancing and snapping photographs of each other.

There are so many art exhibitions and design galleries, one phone company has launched an application just to let you download the day’s events, hence this guy who was having fun posing outside one of the 400-odd events.

Apr

Milan: passion for passion…and fashion

What to wear today: shall I choose the black outfit, or the black outfit? The question asked by a thousand designers in Milan each morning for the past week. Interestingly, the people of Milan are not adverse to uber-bright colour. There were plenty of canary yellow accessories and memorably, yesterday, a woman walked past me in a short black skirt with thick, tomato-soup red stockings on her long legs. They really were the most spectacular red. It was a sight to behold. Girls mix it up with plenty of sneakers and stripy long socks – just by being in Milan makes them edgy, whereas in other cities, they’d be dubbed walking fashion crimes. Boys are immaculately turned out, as is the young Italian man’s want, with perfectly pressed shirts turned up neatly at the sleeve to expose plenty of jewellery, large sunglasses, a coiffed ‘do and a pastel jumper knotted at the neck. The look is complete with the girlfriend’s large handbag. It’s also funny after spending months in such a publicly polite society as Egypt to see couples pashing furiously in any spot they deem fit – say, on the way up the stairs, leaving people behind waiting while they finish exchanging throat secretions. They operate in groups on the metro platforms, everyone’s jaws working simultaneously in the pursuit of romance.

Apr

Conversation from Milan during design week

Conversation1:
Me: Can you suggest somewhere good to eat around here (in the design precinct Zona Tortona)?Design fetishist: Sure Go down via Savona, past the garden full of Dedon furniture, and turn right. Conversation 2: ‘Dark Matter’ by Wyssem and Cécile Nochi. The blackest and most humorous display around, the signature piece of this display of sculptural objects is a biodegradable, 100 percent cashmere body bag, also conveniently available in reusable acrylic. “We are all dark matter,” Lebanese designer Wyssem Nochi told me, in an intense fashion. “And when we decompose, what’s left becomes human consciousness.” Wins points for the most original conversation at Milan ‘09. http://www.wyssemnochi.com/

Apr

Designs on life

You may or may not know, but I’m in Milan at the moment, at the Milan Design Fair. It. Goes. Off. Officially goes off.

There are 400 events on this week, from cocktail parties to art gallery launches. Apparently this number is down on last year, thanks to boring credit crunches.

I think I have second-day blues: I feel totally overwhelmed and have barely touched the surface. Last night, I narrowly avoided putting my drink on a Mark Newson marble table in an art gallery. Luckyyyyyyyy. If yesterday was the day of emerging designers and weird protoypes, today was the big designers: Starck, Urquiola, Jasper Morrison. Had a lot of fun in Edra, Moroso and Kartell.

By the bye…
I loved the Pudelskern rung made from Tyrol sheep wool by a group of young Tyrol based designers. Ditto Chiara Lampignami lights. Gorgeous in an iridescent finish that changes from copper to green to purple. Both are very new on the market, from designers in the design incubator that is iSalone Satellite.

Talking Points
Campana Bros new Cipria sofa in faux fir, like a series of big fluffy marshmallows. EVERYONE was getting photographed on it. So I did too. I will post a link and show you that I am bucking the trend of designer black: how can everyone talk about inspiration and innovation when they are always wearing top to toe black. Today I wore white trousers and a red tunic/blouse and wheeled my red press bag – THE SAME RED. WE MATCHED.

The Him & Her chair, designed by Fabio Novembre for Casamania, takes ‘moulding to the human form’ to a new level, don’t you think?

And finally, Objects for Obama was an exhibit by an American design college, hinged around a series of key words he used in his campaign like Diplomacy, Honesty etc. It was one of the few seriously funny gigs in this massive fair. Nuff said.

HOT WORD: upcycling. It is where you recycle something, but add extra value, like turning a car tyre into a woven rug.

Apr

The disgusting and the divine

If you were ever after a slice of streetlife in Downtown Cairo, taking a bench at Restaurant Zezo the Disgusting’s (est 1962) would give you ringside seats.

The restaurant is a string of benches and trestle tables set on the roadside opposite one of Cairo’s city gates, Bab el-Futah. Built in the 11th century, the gates lead into Gamilaya, the heart of Islamic Cairo, which is why Zezo’s little kitchen is topped with a perky imitation of the gates.

Zezo’s is most famous for its sandwiches – soft white bread rolls – filled with fried liver or spicy oriental sausage, and a super-sweet, hyper-activity-inducing roll filled with halva, cream and… honey (omg!!!) for around LE5 each. The floor is the city’s dirt and there’s a constant stream of taxis, donkey carts, garbage trucks and cheap Chinese motorbikes tearing past, spilling pollution onto the scene. Best eat at night, then.

Last time we visited the 24-hour Zezo’s, a bride sat, in full white regalia, at the next table, intermittently weeping and fainting till her groom back-handed her and manhandled her into the bridal car watched in a mix of amusement and horror by the rest of the cafe.

The perfect follow-up to a late-night dinner at Zezo’s is tea and a shisha pipe at Lord’s, inside the city walls. The cafe’s pets include a handful of stripy kittens, a scattering of small, colourful birds and a large duck, which I reckon is so cranky because it’s sleep deprived. Come too close, and it’ll take a bad-tempered swipe at your ankles.

“What time do you close?” we asked one of the busy cafe boys at Lords.

“There are no walls at Lords,” he replied, with a mystical look in his eye that could have either been the result of the late night, indulgence in sufism or a particularly strong hash…

Apr

Well noted

In between slogging around Cairo and assorted towns, I’ve occasionally been doing some non-travel work – here’s a new blog from fabulous Australian colour and trend forecaster Bree Leech, who put up with bad phone lines and weird time zones to pull together this feature for Home Beautiful magazine. The blog might go a bit wobbly next week cos… we’re off to the biggest, beautifulest Milan Design Fair!

Apr

Sniffing the Breeze

A lot of people have asked what happens in Egypt during Easter. Well, for a start, the Coptic Christian Easter kicks off a week later – so it all starts happening this weekend.

It’s a holiday for most of the country; like anywhere in the world, people are happy to take a public holiday for another religion’s feast days, so the Muslim population will enjoy a long weekend, as will the Christians.

I popped into a Catholic church last Sunday (Palm Sunday), walking in while Mass was just about to start. It was in English, and the congregation was a real mixed bag, with lots of Asian worshippers, elegant old French ladies with big gold earrings and black scarves tied over their coiffed hair, black, black Africans and a few stray whiteys. A Christian friend told me that on Easter Sunday, they will go to church for three hours (three hours!) then picnic with friends and family afterwards.

The weekend culminates in a holiday on Monday called ‘Sham el Nissem’, or ‘Sniffing the Breeze’, where everyone gets out and picnics. One website says that this feast, which is also regarded as the first day of spring, has been celebrated by Egyptians for over 4500 years, making it one of the world’s oldest.

Interesting name, the traditional thing to eat is salted anchovies, sardines and mackerel, so the breeze will be interesting indeed.

Apr

Life in Cairo, as the newspapers see it

Cairo has a number of rather slim English language papers, mostly condensed versions of their Arabic bretheren, including Al-Ahram, the Egyptian Gazette and the Daily News.
In a quick flick through the papers this weekend, here are a few of the key news items:· Up to 50,000 private medical clinics went on strike against doctors’ low salaries, which can be as little as LE470/month (about A$120) after graduation, rising to a hefty LE1000 (A$250)· A group of followers of the Bahai’i faith were attacked with stones and firebombs in their homes. There are between 500 and 2000 Bahai’is in Egypt, who recently won the right to hold government identity papers, which don’t list their religion (opponents say only Muslims and Christians should have the right to hold identity papers).· Taxis over 20 years of age have until 2011 to get off the roads, replaced with newer taxis that run on natural gas. There are more than 40,000 taixs on Cairo’s roads. Their models read like a who’s who of former Soviet and central European countries: Russian Ladas, Romanian Dacias, Italian Fiats, French Peugeots, Turkish Shahins and lastly, the home made Egyptian Nasrs. Taxi drivers are, to a man, horrified. · A man beat his daughter to death after she received a phone call from her boyfriend. · Around 27% of Egyptians have high blood pressure caused by eating junk food, smoking, obesity and lack of exercise. And, most importantly for a front page story:· Nefertiti had wrinkles.

Apr

The Oracle speaks

The wind rustled the dusty palm trees and tickled the waters of the salt lakes down below as I stood on a hilltop, surveying the Siwan oasis.

The hill has particular significance – it was the site of the Siwa Oracle, where Alexander the Great came in 331 BC to ask the question he would take to his grave, most likely seeking advice for annexing the rich lands of Egypt for his empire.

The only sound was the wind as the midday heat grew and my guide Ibrahim and I were silent as we overlooked the oasis. Then I heard it:

“You’ve got the longest lifeline, girl!”

The voice was pure Camp Australia and I turned to find a large group of Antipodeans (with a few Americans?) reading each other’s palms on the historical hilltop. Oracles…palm reading…

Well, I guess the site’s always been a place to find your destiny.

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