I think of myself as a reasonable man of the world, one with a certain amount of cynicism and weariness about what goes on. Then something happens and I get a reminder that no, I am in fact a tiny naïf who probably shouldn't be allowed out on his own.
I was on the M1 headed across the city, and a man was stood beside me with his suitcase. He had neat, trimmed nails, apart from the little finger on his right hand, which I realised was a coke fingernail. I was scandalised. Was it 1976? Was I at Studio 54? This man was on public transport, where people could see him, with a clear indicator that he was a gentleman who used illicit substances. If I had been wearing pearls, I would absolutely have clutched them.
Reeling, I staggered off the train at the end of the line at Sesto 1º Maggio FS. I'd gone from Rho Fieramilano right to the opposite end of the M1; with two branches closed off, it was time to do the rest. The station was in something of a state. It's connected to a mainline station and that station has been completely demolished for a comprehensive rebuild. (The mainline station is called Sesto S. Giovanni, after the town itself; the metro station is named after the square outside).
This is part of a huge regeneration project currently underway. On the other side of the tracks there was once the Falck steelworks, which closed in the 1990s. After decades work is finally in progress to turn it into a new district planned by, of course, Foster & Partners. You can''t arrive at some manky old station for your new shiny development so the whole thing had to be reconstructed, this time by Renzo Piano, because there are only about six architecture firms in the whole world.
The Milanese authorities have recently approved an eleven line extension of the M5, which should interchange at Cinsello-Bettola, so presumably the works will soon begin again. Let's hope they planned ahead when building what they did. so that a second line can be easily incorporated, otherwise they'll have to knock the whole thing down and start again.
The area around the station was a chaotic mess, not helped by the obvious difference in economies between Sesto and the rest of Milan. As in the UK, the closure of the steelworks hit the city hard, knocking wages and raising unemployment. The depression in living costs made the city attractive for immigrants, and quietly it shifted from being a staunchly trade union town to one that elected a right wing mayor.
Other industries have departed Sesto. Campari was once made in the town, and while the headquarters remains, the factory is now a museum. Being from Luton, I of course have a close personal relationship with Campari, as it's the drink that put us on the map - not necessarily the intent of the advert, but there you go.
I was disappointed to go to the Campari website and find an entire section about the brand's advertising history and its association with cinema and not a single mention of Lorraine Chase being wafted in from paradise. They try to be all sophisticated these days - Salma Hayek did an ad for them - but in Britain, if you ordered a Campari, at least one person in the bar will say "Luton Airport!". They probably won't pronounce the Ts, mind.
I've never actually had a Campari. It comes under the same category as Cinzano (another great advert of course) and Martini Rosso: drinks you wouldn't dream of ordering in a pub because you'll get called a poof. What you need is someone to have a sophisticated drinks cabinet from which you can sample various different aperitifs, but I don't have friends like that. You're lucky if you get milk in your tea with most of them.
I carried on, past the Campari factory and the Bar Campari, over a grid that went straight down to the M1; there was a slight breeze, but I didn't do the full Marilyn. Unlike in Milan, the shops in Sesto didn't seem keen to open for Sunday trading, not even the Carrefour. It left the streets feeling sleepy and empty.
A more pertinent explanation for the lack of activity was that it was midday and roasting hot and only mad dogs and Englishmen would be out in it. I imagined people peering over their balconies, watching me walk by and wondering what was wrong with me, then realising "aha. Inglese!"
I'd reached the centre of the town, as far as it seemed; a busy gyratory with shops surrounding it. I crossed the various arms with a large, slightly irate family, who didn't seem to want to be going anywhere and were complaining about it the whole time.
The Metro can sometimes be a cold, dark place to descend into. Passageways under the roads branch and branch again, leaving you disoriented, while corners conceal who knows what. The repeated audio messages to be aware of pickpockets don't help with the atmosphere. Every time I took the steps a part of me wondered what I would find, though I experienced no problems with crime or safety at all; a couple of beggars, the odd person pushing through the ticket barriers, the low level criminality you get in any big city.
Sesto Marelli was my third station in the city of Sesto, and another one that was a terminus for a while - in this case, between 1964 and 1986.
Though you wouldn't know to look at it today, Marelli had to be comprehensively rebuilt twenty years after the rest of the line following an arson attack in 1982. The "Offensive Proletarian Revolutionary Movement" set fire to the padded seats on a train that terminated here; it quickly spread and the entire station went up. This was when Sesto S. Giovanni was at its most lefty. It took only five months to have it up and running again.
I came out of the station onto another long, straight, road (wow it's almost as if the Romans were big around here or something). I was crossing from the city of Sesto into the city of Milan, and large signs warned me about a congestion charge coming into effect. The border was marked by a gleaming glass building, as though Milan wanted to underline how modern it was next to its rube neighbours, while beyond apartment blocks alternated with low stores and industrial blocks.
There was barely any shade. I clung to the right hand side of the street, where the walls and fences cast a small, half metre of darkness that could keep me cool. When I reached a car park, lined with trees, I was practically giddy; I walked under the branches, enjoying the respite, past a Mondo Mini Market which I imagine sold nothing but the bloodiest hunks of meat chopped by a man with a machete and a grunt.
From here on, the stations appeared with startling regularity, every half a kilometre or so. I'd barely have gathered my thoughts about the last one before the red M appeared on the horizon again.
Villa S.Giovanni made me feel about eight hundred years old. There was a photo booth in the ticket hall, and it advertised its wares with the slogan Foto Vintage! I realised that the concept of using a photo booth was like having a man with a big moustache making you stand still for five minutes while he hid under a blanket and fired a bolt of gunpowder. It was being sold as a trip back in time rather than anything practical.
Fortunately there was a far friendlier and more modern machine for me. These vending machines were scattered all along the M1, and they were an absolute god send for me. A couple of taps, the ding of my phone against the bar, and I had an ice cold drink in my hands. The BF and I share a credit card when we're abroad and he messaged me to query all the tiny amounts that were showing up on it, worried that it was one of those hacks where they take a few pence to test the water then hit you for five grand. I explained no, it was just that whenever I saw one of these, I bought myself another cooler. (Coke Zero, more often than not: number 32).
The system showing its age a bit there. The Metro is sixty-odd years old now, crafted largely out of concrete, and it's of a vintage where I imagine there are discussions about refurbishment throughout. The M2 was undergoing work as I was there, and they recently announced that the whole Cologno branch will close for a month so that work can be carried out on the concrete viaducts that carry it.
I had a precotto for dessert in a restaurant once. Like a set custard. Lovely.
The street opened out into a wide triangle of parking and there was no escape from the merciless sun. I was sweating so much I was dehydrated; I'd drunk about eight litres of liquid over the course of the red line, and I hadn't so much as thought about urinating. When I finally got back to the hotel and forced some pee out it was thick and green. Every bit of water I poured into myself immediately came straight back out my sweat glands.
There was a plaque at Gorla commemorating a man named Renato Briano. Usually, in the UK, this is a tribute to a loyal railworker, or a victim of a terrible accident. Briano, on the other hand, was assassinated by members of the Red Brigades in 1980, which was a bit of a shock to discover. It's easy to forget that Europe in the 1970s was plagued by bombs and terrorists and assassinations on a large scale; that anarchists were detonating shopping centres and shooting politicians across the entire continent. The 21st century is nothing special for having terrorist attacks, it's just a different source.
Swipe my phone, through the barriers, steps, platform, train, platform, steps, through the barriers, back up to street level, and here was Turro.
I was seriously flagging now. I'd been out since 8am, remember, and the day had only got warmer and more brutal. I paused under some trees by the side of the road and guzzled an entire bottle of water in an extremely undignified fashion, until I spotted two teenage boys walk round the corner and approach me. I attempted to gain a look of decency so they wouldn't spot my flaws and beat me up, or worse, laugh.
None of the Viale Monza had been what you'd call exclusive. It was, essentially, a dual carriageway for getting traffic out of the city and off to the nearby regions. The homes and shops had been working class, functional, but now I was reaching the inner city. The graffiti became more frequent and more prominent, the litter ramped up, and the stores felt that little bit darker and less hospitable.
The cinema is now an evangelical church. Personally I think a film showing pornos probably has a net better influence on society than organised religion but that might just be me.
What is there to say about Rovereto that couldn't equally apply to any of the other stations on the Viale Monza?
Pass.
It was important to me to get to the Piazzale Loreto because that was a pivotal spot in Italy's World War II history. At the western end is the Monumento ai Martiri P.le Loreto - the Monument to the Martyrs of Loreto.
Pasteur station is currently subject to discussion about getting a name change. People are concerned that commemorating the works of a great man who prevented the unnecessary death and illness of millions gives out the impression that pasteurized milk is something to be supported. It's going to be renamed RFK, and then everyone can drink poisoned milk and love it.
(It's not really, that was my feeble attempt at satire, but give it time.)
This was going to be my last stretch of the M1 for the time being, I decided. I needed to go somewhere there was air conditioning and lie down. Yes, there were still a load of stations to go, but they could wait. I'd get to Loreto and then go back to the hotel.
In 1944, during the occupation of Northern Italy, a German military truck was blown up, allegedly by the Italian Resistance. No Germans were killed - in fact the only casualties were six Milanese citizens - and subsequent investigations have suggested it was a deliberate false flag so they could crack down on the partisans. They did so in an extremely brutal fashion, taking fifteen resistance men from a prison and shooting them in the Piazzale Loreto at dawn on the 10th August 1944.
The bodies were left in the sun all day, guarded by the SS to ensure they weren't moved. Fascists were encouraged to defile them while passers by were forced to look at them. They were an example of what happened to resisters. (The leader of the shooting, by the way, then collaborated with the CIA and got a series of good jobs in the government of West Germany; he wasn't tried for the murders until 1999). The brutality actually had the opposite effect, scarring the minds of the people of Milan, and inciting further resistance.
The Piazza Loreto then became home to another display of corpses eight months later. On April 27th, 1945, Benito Mussolini was caught trying to escape Italy at Giulino di Mezzegra near Lake Como. He and his entourage were executed and their bodies sent to Milan. In an act of vengeance, the bodies were strung up for the public to abuse at the same spot the martyrs had been murdered: the corner of Viale Andrea Doria and Corso Buenos Aires on Piazza Loreto. There's no statue to mark that, as you'd expect, and the spot has been subsequently redeveloped. In fact, what's there now is... a McDonalds.
If I'd have been in a better state, I'd have gone in and had a special Anti-Fascist Big Mac with a side of Fuck You Mussolini Fries. Instead I headed straight for Loreto station, one of the most important on the network as the interchange between the M1 and M2.
Loreto's had a slight makeover compared to its brethren on the M1; it's lost the rubber floor and acquired a zig-zag light feature that brings a welcome dash of colour to the ceiling.
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