Non Fiction

Thursday, 7th September

Thursday, 7th September

Lyon, France

Here I am, sitting in one of Lyon’s leafy parks.  It’s a quiet spot, although Lyon seems a remarkably quiet place.

My train left Stoke in a parade of ordinariness.  Same old faces, same old sun with a cloud over it on the weather map.  Yet my stomach was tight with a nervousness I’ve not felt since Michael Howard last came on the television, (there’s something deeply unsettling about that man).  As ever, my Mum had affixed her most reassuringly placid expression of support as she drove me to the station, and not once did it flicker with the slightest hint of trepidation.  That’s a mother’s love for you.  Or sheer bloody-mindedness.

So we raced through Staffordshire, Warwickshire and the Home Counties; and I bade farewell to my beloved Albion as the fields smeared themselves against the windows like school-kids around an ice-cream van.  One fat-headed (and fat-arsed) fellow traveller drove my reverie to ruin by reading which programmes she would be missing that night from the TV listings to her companion, and showing her mind to be about as incisive as a potato in a coma with offerings like, “It’s a lot easier than driving, isn’t it?”

I don’t mean to get off on the wrong foot here; I’m really not a whinger.  I only mention it because it made leaving the country so much easier.  I was set for adventure! The exotic! The unknown!  Not that I had much choice.  I had invested too much ambition in the plan to think about backing out now.  ‘Plan’ might be a rather grandiose term for my strategy: don’t book a thing; go where you like; and sleep rough.

Soon I sat in a state of dumb panic as the Eurostar pulled out of Waterloo.  The train looked as if the designers had plunged their life-savings into speculating on the set-square market: there wasn’t a curved line to be found.  Even the toilet-seat was rectangular, (probably not true, never thought to check).  This was a big disappointment, and the nerves crackled inside me as we shook south: every tunnel we entered I expected to continue into oblivion, and my heart shook its fists with rage and confusion as we burst into daylight once more.  Then, verdant grassy cuttings became oceans of sinister gravel and menacing wires.  Bollocks to the White Cliffs of Dover!  This is a border!

Ffffffwut!  We shot out into big fields and flocks of muttering, shrugging, bicycle-riding seagulls.  Already exhausted with nerves, one glance at the functional French countryside north of Paris and I turned back to my book; uncomfortably turning over the possibility that I had made a gigantic mistake in the back of my mind.  I resolved to remember as much GCSE French as possible (“Aidez moi!” “Aidez moi!”) and speculated where I might sleep. 

I arrived in France just in time to miss the last train to Lyon.  A platform attendant with an implausibly long length of ash on his fag smirked at me with satisfaction.  I scrutinised the options for sleeping...  None...  The French seemed to be furious with me wherever I go; although this is probably due to the fact that I am endlessly frightened, bewildered, sweating and incomprehensible.  Eventually, I swallowed my pride and clattered into a hostel opposite the station.

Friday, 8th September

Lausanne, Switzerland

I woke in Paris feeling a good deal better.  No one had joined me in the night so I took the opportunity to have a naked wash in the sink and lean to casually drip-dry out of the 5th storey window in what I hoped was a grand Gallic tradition. 

After a bite to eat I found the train to Lyon and hoped on.  As the train slid south the scenery became a much more interesting. I hadn’t bargained for any sight-seeing in France; and besides, the connection to Lausanne was in a few hours time, so I resorted to strolling through the streets to the rivers.  I did happen to meet a lovely French girl though, who served her lunchtime customers, even the most stinking and hapless of them, with an enchanting grace.

Saturday, 9th September

Milan, Italy

I am sitting at a pew in La Duomo, its 9 o’clock now and starting to fill up with people, but I’ve been here since dawn.  I spent last night in a vineyard which was tremendous.  There was a storm a few miles away and watching it from a bed on the Alps was something else.  I did get a few flecks of rain and thought I might be forced to hide out in someone’s garage but fortunately the heavens stayed closed.  I woke to the sound of a cockerel crowing, which made me laugh out loud briefly – and surprise myself by a sound from my own throat: a funny feeling.  At home, there’s always someone around to bounce your thoughts and feelings around with, how crazy is it that I can get to the point where I’m surprised at the noise I make?

I reached Lausanne again, changed Swiss francs into Euros and headed for the train over the Alps.  Still feeling reflective I splurged some precious battery power on my music player and sat back. Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan: one of the best ‘listens’ to music I’ve ever had.  The only thing that annoyed me was that I was going to forget that precise feeling, and so much else besides, in a matter of hours. 

As I stepped out onto the concourse in front of the colossal station in Milan the warm Italian air hit me like a freight train.  Milan was immense – I had expected that.  I hadn’t really been thinking about it, I’d been so absorbed with the Alps.  Everything you hear about the Italians is true: they are so effortlessly cool, and the streets are scattered with cars, scooters and mopeds like autumn leaves.  I wandered happily, dreamily, around one absolutely stunning gallery but there was too much.  I vowed to find a hostel, shower and change the clothes I’d had on since I set off from Stoke.

But there were none to be had.  There was one, but it had vanished, and the next nearest was perhaps an hour’s walk away from the action.  I wasn’t too worried though.  I’d passed a bushy inner-city park – that phrase doesn’t rely do it justice – which was locked at night that would be perfect to crash in, provided I got there before the gatekeeper.  It appeared I had, and as the light faded it looked all the more inviting.  I burrowed manfully into a thick shrub to enjoy a peaceful, undisturbed night.

Sunday, 10th September

Florence, Italy

I woke up in my bushy cot at half past six in the morning.  The gatekeeper wasn’t due back to open up until seven o’clock, so I showered under a water fountain and looked about.  The park was the same size as the neighbouring blocks in the city, a beautiful garden in the heart of the city.  One thing I hadn’t counted on was the local wildlife: I was bitten rotten in my sleep by a host of creatures and my face glinted like a glitter-ball.  Once I washed up I made my way to the Duomo – which is quite a building whichever way you look at it – and felt suitably awed.  The sights are somewhat limited when one looked as I did, so I settled down on a pew to read and write the old journal.  Shelley used to sit and read Dante here so I felt very worldly.

I ambled and gambolled around Milan for a good while, enjoying myself immensely and whistling like a young Roger Whittaker before I caught a train out of the city.  I had intended to stop and see Genoa but my guidebook was disdainful, so I sat tight and readied myself for Florence.  The train from Pisa to Florence was waiting and I didn’t have time to see the Tower, not that I particularly minded, I had Florence in store.  I got into a fantastic chat with a bloke my age whom was in the Italian Air Force, everything from Iraq to Roberto Baggio’s penalty miss in the 1994 World Cup Final.  As we shook hands to go our separate ways in Florence I found myself saying, “Ciao, Francesco!” in as fine an Italian accent as Garabaldi himself.  Still smiling at myself, I found a hostel and finally got under a shower.  I never stopped smiling in Florence.

Monday, 11th September

Lecce, Italy

Florence is beautiful. I shunned most of the other sites and toured through the tens of little churches packed away in abandoned little corners of the city.  It was a great afternoon.  You step in from the heat and glare of the street into dead cool, and I’m pretty sure I now know what God smells like.  Every single one is covered with beautiful frescoes, shining wood and gleaming bronze and gold.  If you’re in the hunt for a religion – and don’t care too much about the credo – plump for Catholicism: you get majesty; fervour; valour; and Satan; blood, and sin.  The only downside I can see is Mel Gibson. 

Monday, 12th September

Bari, Italy

I’d been there five minutes before a man came up to me.  “You sleep?” he asked.  I nodded.  He mimed a gun and the theft of my rucksack.  I thanked him for his warning and reconsidered that I perhaps shouldn’t stay the night there.  Ten more minutes passed and another man walked gingerly up to me.  His skin was the colour of cooked sausages and he wore the brightest, tightest pair of speedos I’ve ever seen:

            “What is your name?”

            I told him.

            “Where are you from?”  He comes closer.

            England.  He looks like the cowboy from The Big Lebowski.

            “Just England?” he probes.

            “Manchester.”  He comes closer still.  Too close.  Our legs are nearly touching.

            “How old are you?”

            “Twenty.”

            “Trente?”

            “Twenty. Two,” I mime.

            “Twenty-two?!”

            I show twenty figures.  His eyes are glistening, earnestly.

            “Twenty-two!” he smiles.

            “….Yeah.”

            “My English is not so good,” he says sorrowfully.

            “No no, it’s very good,” I reply, Britishly.

            “Are you not lonely?” he asks, his eyes brimming.

            “….Sometimes it’s good to be lonely,” I say.

He puts his face so close to mine I can feel his voice on my face as he says, “Your eyes are as blue as the sky.”  “I’ve really got to go and see the town!” I say, leaping up whilst frantically trying to look normal.  “Manchester kiss??” he pleads as I throw my pack onto my shoulders and scramble off.  While replaying the scene in my head I flit between finding it hilarious and terrifying.  I decide to take a train out of town, there’s nothing to do here.  I recognise the name Lecce as having a football team and jump on a two-hour train ride.

The time passed and Lecce was just what I need.  In fact, it’s everything that I could ever possibly need.  It’s serene, old and empty.  Plaster gently crumbles from every building.  It has a tiny Roman amphitheatre in the town square and many beautiful churches.  The weather is glorious – I’m right on Achilles heel of the Italian boot and I couldn’t be more impressed.  I strolled through the narrow alleyways (they can’t really be called streets) delighting in my luck to be here, found a Bed & Breakfast, showered and slept for the next twelve hours.

Tuesday, 13th September

Split, Croatia

In the morning I had breakfast in my hosts’ kitchen and explored the town.  There’s isn’t so much to do – other than enjoy how unspoilt it is.  That said, there is a bit of scaffolding on a few of the buildings and I got the impression that they were just waking up to the fact that they were sitting on a goldmine.  In addition to the amphitheatre I found a Roman fort and an art gallery, both worth a little nose around.  Needless to stay, I lingered in Lecce for as long as I could until the train back to Bari and the ferry to Croatia. 

Henry Allyn