In March 1998 three enterprising Australians (well, two Aussies and a Kiwi Overstayer) set off for Europe to attend the IWA Show in Germany. Two and a half weeks through Italy and Germany, and the first time outside of Australasia for all of us. This is our story.
What an embarrassment. We turn up at Brisbane Airport to find our Qantas jet has been covered in graffitti. Luckily we only go as far as Singapore in this heathen thing. Seven and a half hours later and we stop at Singapore before joining Luftwaffe Airlines (I had to stop Les from asking the stewardess how far Dresden is "as the Lancaster flies"). It's a long sleepless night on an overcrowded plane, and we stumble bleary-eyed into a grey dawn at Frankfurt Airport.
Of course our connecting flight is several kilometres away in a different terminal, and our flight "might" be from Gate 93, or it "might" change when we get there. And then of course our flight is delayed for refuelling, which consists entirely of a solitary post-modern hippy slouching around between cigatettes doing bugger all, which we witness from the comfort of our gate lounge. I worry because I have a business contact meeting us in Milan with our rental car. Boy do I have a lot to learn about Italian punctuality.
We join the queue for takeoff eventually, which in itself is quite an eye-opener for hicks like us where we only need ONE runway for both takeoffs and landings. While the flight starts out quite overcast the clouds part above the Alps and we get a beautiful view of snow-capped mountains and blue lakes below. Then the air takes on a more industrial aspect as we come out of the mountains and over the sprawling grey urban centre of Milan. We land and park in a massive planepark before being ferried to the terminal in a bus.
After collecting our luggage we wander into the public area scanning the signs held by foreign people who don't speak our language. I am a little concerned not to have found one with "Potter" written on it, so I quiz a few at random to make sure they haven't mistakenly written "Gomez" or something. Nope. So we decide to sit down and wait, maybe he was held up in traffic. I know I have a rental car booked in my name, I just don't know which company it's booked through. So to help pass the time and to stop myself from thinking I've been abandoned in a strange land I start asking at the rental car desks if they have a car in my name. There are seven of them. At Number Seven I hear a voice behind me say, "I'm sorry I'm late - welcome to Italy!".
The formalities are taken care of and we go to the car. Yoiks, the steering wheel's on the wrong side! Thirty hours without sleep and I have to follow Raffaele for over an hour around Milan (we are staying on the western side, whereas Linate Airport is on the east). This is a crash course in driving on the wrong side of the road, and in a manual to boot! But we arrive safely at the motel and settle in for a shower and a nap. Arrangements are made to visit a gun shop later in the day (shops stay open until after 8pm on Saturday).
A few odd things happen at the motel. First, they take our passports off us at Reception. We find out later this is standard practice in Italy, but the mistrust leaves a sour taste. Then, the coffee I order comes in a thimble. I knew beforehand that the "C" tap is the hot, but it takes me several minutes to work out how to let the water out of the bathroom sink. And the bath towel is like a big hard tea towel.
The afternoon rolls around and we head off to the south, driving on the Autostrada. We are unable to find a restaurant open for lunch, so end up having our first meal in Italy at McDonalds. Where they serve beer! The trek continues at ever-increasing speed. We start at 120 km/h for the first few minutes, slowly increasing to 130. Then after the Macca stop, being tanked up on junk food, we hit 140 km/h. All this time cars in the fast lane are whizzing past at least 10 km/h quicker than us. We are creeping to 145 as a Ferrari howls past like we're standing still. In a fit of excitement we hit 165 km/h (we may have been sucked along in its draft). Two minutes later a pair of Alfa Romeo police cars rush past with blue lights flashing. Les, who's traveling with Raffaele in the lead vehicle asks, "Do you think they're after the Ferrari?" Raffaele just laughs and says, "Do you think they could catch him?"
All of this in our rental Opel Astra 1.4 station wagon. She gets along quite well on the open road. I'm a little concerned about gettin a speeding ticket so later I ask what the speed limit is on the Autostrada. Nobody knows. These are people who travel up and down it every day. There is a limit, but nobody cares. In fact, in all the time we're in Italy we only see one motorist stopped by police. He must have done something really bad, he was probably singing Opera out of tune to his car stereo.
We visit the gun shop at a town called Reggia Emilio, somewhere near the Ferrari factory I'm told. With airlock-style remote controlled doors it's unlikely to be an easy target for the casual holdup. Many handguns and shotguns are on display. Apparently once you have a target shooters licence either of these are easy to buy. Centrefire rifles are extremely hard to get a licence for, and air pistols are controlled as tightly as all other pistols, as in Australia. Downstairs is a neat little complex of 10m air range, a workshop where a grip maker was working on a custom grip and a 25m pistol range.
By this time the sun is going down, sleep deprivation is starting to hit and we head off the 160 km back to our motel in Milan, stopping only briefly for our first real Italian pizza at a roadhouse that straddles the Autostrada.
An early start to the day to find that our motel dining room is closed. So is Milan. We head off in the general direction of the Milan Shooting Centre, and some hours later we find it. Ten minutes from our motel if you know the way. Luckily a gentleman called Sergei who speaks English is kind enough to guide us around the complex and educate me in particular what type of coffee to ask for in a cafe. This is where the World Cups are shot every year, and the World Champs were here in 1994. Fairly standard for a UIT range, 60+ 50m bays, five 25m speed ranges and a 60 position air range. Also to cater for the yippee shooters there is an underground range behind the 50m butts for high powered centrefires. The entire complex is in the middle of suburban Milan, right next to the decaying ruins of the old shooting complex.
Sergei offers to drop us in the middle of the city to do some sightseeing. This is much easier than giving directions, plus I am glad of this when I realise the driving habits of the locals is rather flambouyant. Sergei uses his horn almost as much as his brake pedal, and I don't think my hand gestures can be quite so expressive. I also don't think I can spend so much time with neither hand on the steering wheel.
The rest of the day is spent wandering around the Castello Sforzesco, through the centre of the city to the Milan Cathedral. There is an excellent collection of old handguns on display in the Castello. I am a little disappointed by the amount of rubbish in the streets. The moat surrounding the Castello is littered with garbage, and I take a photo of a dead rat on the pavement within sight of the Cathedral.
We eventually find a taxi to take us back to the Shooting Complex. Our driver knows no English and our pronunciation of the address seems to just confuse him. But he has a sense of humour and we soon get under way, luckily in the right direction. Within a few blocks of the range it appears a water main has burst. Traffic is being directed away from our connection road, and our man has to run the gauntlet of council workers, police and rising floodwaters to get us back to our car. After only a minor detour around a huge cemetary I manage to find our motel, to the disbelief of my passengers who thought I was lost.
Dinner becomes a drama when we are turned away from several restaurants because they are booked out. Something to do with a National Womens Day; either that or they just can't face the prospect of menu charades. Finally we find a restaurant who grudgingly agree to feed us provided we eat quickly and get out before their real customers arrive (ie those who booked ahead).
Nightlife for us consists of crashing at the motel watching Italian TV. It's a mystery to me that 98% of the girls on the street are brunette. Yet 100% of the game show hostesses are blonde. And there's lot of them. I can't understand a word, but I guess anything different is entertaining for a while.
We spend most of the day touring the gun factory and testing a new air pistol. We are taken to a wonderfully relaxed business lunch where the fare seems to be mainly various seafood and pickled savouries. I take a crash course in hammer unit refurbishing with the chief gunsmith. His English is as good as my Italian. Luckily his mother was French so we can communicate passably.
Late afternoon we head north west from Milan to take in some of the sights. After dark we hit Como, which is a very old town at the southern end of Lake Como, very nearly on the border of Switzerland. Following signs to the town centre I somehow end up on a very narrow road climbing a hill. It becomes apparent that it's not so much a hill as a mountain (we are after all near the Alps now). Luckily it's dark and we can't actually see the drop. Traffic is fast and furious, the road is very tight, and in many places there is not enough room for two cars abreast. I think my passengers may be a little nervous. We reach the top, briefly debate whether we should turn back or go on, then continue in the same direction. It turns out to be a loop road that takes us back to town. A few turns later and we find a budget hotel built in an old church.
There is a freezing wind whipping off the lake as we walk a few streets looking for a restaurant. Not surprisingly we take the first one that comes along before returning to the hotel.
Woken by a conveniently placed church bell at 6am we rise to take in the sights of Como on a glorious and clear day. First on the agenda is a ride up the fernicular, taking us to the top of our favourite mountain of the previous night. Being early spring the Swiss Alps still have plenty of snow to make a great view. We notice a restored gun emplacement halfway up the hill is sponsored by Fiocchi.
Back to the town itself we walk through the shopping centre and into Como's Cathedral. While not physically as big as Milan's, it certainly is impressive inside. We pick up our car at the hotel and head off around midday. Lake Como looks like an upside-down V. We skirt the southern shore on a road that would be considered single lane anywhere else in the sane world. For twenty minutes we follow a truck and cringe every time he passes another vehicle. Once he misses a bus by inches; there is a bank on one side and a short stone wall preventing a long drop into the lake on the other. Eventually we stop at a lakeside restaurant with a fantastic view across the dark blue water. The waitress seems used to illiterate tourists and is very patient with us. Which is not always the case in Milan.
After travelling some kilometres through road tunnels where mountains meet the water we arrive in Lecco at the bottom right toe of Lake Como. This is the home of the Fiocchi factory, which we find after asking for directions. Unfortunately most of the staff have already left for the trade show in Nurnberg, so we are given a cloth patch, a colour brochure, a pat on the head and are sent on our way.
I spend the rest of the afternoon putting my excellent sense of direction to use. While skirting around Bergamo I manage to end up travelling in completely the wrong direction. My passengers are dozing and fail to notice (for most of the time anyway). Strangely enough I find another dead end road at a cemetary (no pun intended). I consult the map belatedly and head off towards Lovere.
As dark falls we stop at a shop to ask if there is accommodation nearby. We are skirting another smaller lake, and our car's thermometer says it's getting dowm towards zero outside. My French comes in handy again; the shopkeeper sends us to a most unlikely-looking place that appears to be a sports complex of some sort that doubles as a guest house. We are the only guests, and our dinner arrives as somewhat a surprise. The menu is set, there are no choices. The rather severe woman running the pension has absolutely no inkling of English, but she becomes more friendly as the evening wears on and Les gives her a poster of Grafton.