Frowned-upon in Milan

Italian coffee culture, Milano Centrale train station, lax border control and dogs in diapers

All pictures in this newsletter are my own. © C. Labriola

Thank you for your patience during my absence. I have been traveling and upon returning to Canada battled a cold and some heavier-than-normal jetlag symptoms.

Perhaps you saw my video explaining this absence. It is available on YouTube (short), Instagram and TikTok.

The next few newsletters will focus on my adventures in Switzerland and Italy during the last two weeks of April.

In today’s newsletter, I’m writing about Milano Central train station with a lead-in observation about Italian coffee culture. These are the topics:

• The Frecciarossa high-speed train

• The coveted cappuccino

• Train terminal

• Smoking and pets (plus a dog in diapers)

• Fun facts about Milano Centrale

• Security in the train station (police, military and INTERPOL)

• Border control between Switzerland and Italy (profiling)

• Delay and final destination

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The Frecciarossa high-speed train

On the way to Turin from Zürich on the popular high-speed Frecciarossa train, we stopped in Milan.

Our connecting train to Turin should have been ready to board within an hour of our arrival in Milan, but we ended up experiencing a significant yet unexplained delay of 90 minutes.

Perfect time for a cappuccino, I thought.

The coveted cappuccino

Glancing at the clock, I realized it was by now mid-afternoon. We had been traveling for more than four hours through mountains and a snowstorm. There was a restaurant wagon in the Frecciarossa train but I was sitting with a family member who wasn’t feeling well and opted to stay with her rather than wander off. Other family offered to bring me back a coffee but for whatever reason, it slipped their mind. So, by the time we disembarked the train in Milan, and with the looming delay of our unexplained connection creeping by in ten-minute increments, I was looking forward to a jolt of caffeine.

One of my aunts, who lived in Italy for six years and later spent many more decades vacationing in the Marche region, offered to walk with me to a little bistro in Milan’s very busy train terminal. We arrived at the counter and the barista, a young Italian man, asked for my order.

“Cappuccino,” I told him.

What happened next was both mortifying and amusing.

I swear, although I can’t prove it, both the barista and my aunt visibly flinched.

It appears I just committed the cardinal sin of ordering a beverage with a dairy product well past the morning hours.

My aunt later explained that Italians consider milk-infused coffee to be a meal-replacement and bad for digestion if consumed after a certain time of day, or after meals (other than breakfast). Italians don’t drink cafe lattes or cappuccinos after 11 am, so when tourists order milk with coffee after lunch, this act is heavily frowned up.

Which didn’t mean he didn’t take my money. I got a subtle eye-roll and the aforementioned flinch with my highly coveted Italian cappuccino. But I wasn’t off the hook; my aunt gave me a little lecture after observing my sipping ritual.

“Shame on you,” she chastised me with a smile. “You with your Italian blood!”

But I didn’t care. I was on vacation, I was tired, and I like cappuccino.

This little coffee adventure didn’t deter me from enjoying my cappuccino. We were, after all, in Italy where bad coffee is hard to find. I sipped my cappuccino, which by the way was delicious, and later returned to the bench where the rest of the family waited for updates about our connecting train and observed the hustle and bustle around me.

Train terminal

Milano Centrale train station has a fascinating structure not unlike the Zürich grand central station. It was Sunday April 21 and the first weekend of a two-week school vacation (the equivalent of spring break in North America, albeit later in the season). When we disembarked the Frecciarossa, the masses of people rushing to their next train connection was more than a little overwhelming. At one point we were stuck, unable to move forward or back. We had quite a bit of luggage, and one of the family struggled with mobility issues, so battling the crowds wasn’t my favorite part of this trip.

Here's a short video I created of Milano Centrale:

Somehow we made it to one of the large screens hanging overhead which indicated our connection was delayed, so we continued toward a wall at the south end of the terminal. We found an empty bench near the police station where we could sit. Some of us stayed and kept an eye on the board and luggage, and others of us walked around a bit.

Believe it or not, this was a rare moment when no people passed through this part of the terminal (picture above). Incidentally, I was surprised at how orderly the waste bins were organized. Having just come from Switzerland where order and cleanliness is a matter of national pride, I wasn’t sure what to expect in an Italian train station, especially not one of such immense size as Milano Centrale. Yet there was surprisingly little garbage scattered around the terminal, and for the most part, people used the receptacles the way they were intended.

However, there were a lot of cigarette butts everywhere. Italy, it appears, loves smoking about as much as they love their coffee.

Smoking and pets

Train stations are fascinating, don’t you think? Particularly European ones. I’ve been to several large, international ones in previous years, namely Zürich, London, Paris and Frankfurt. And now, I was experiencing Italian ones in Milan and Turin.

I remembered sending one of my kids a message remarking about the confusion that is Milano Centrale in terms of the international and local passengers mixing without rhyme or reason. For a person who likes strategic order, this was a fascinating experience for me. I kind of enjoyed the confusion.

The overwhelming masses of people, many of them smoking or vaping, was intriguing (and off-putting, particularly the cigarette smoke). There were children and luggage everywhere, and many people had dogs on leashes which surprised me. In Canada there are a multitude of rules about dogs in public places, but here in this busy metropolis, Italians took their beloved dogs with them on train trips as a matter of principle.

No one batted an eye.

I was particularly entertained with the barking dogs. The people, clearly and obviously Italian, were patient in correcting and silencing their furry pals, not stressed or impatient, even if a dog expressed a little extra vocal outrage at something or someone. I only saw one dog with a muzzle; but all dogs were on a leash, walking beside their owners without tugging, with a sense of ‘been there, done that, no big deal’.

Dog in diapers

On the return trip to Zürich I saw a medium-sized dog in one of the Italian train terminals with a diaper. I pointed it out to my niece who suggested the dog may be female and on her period. It was a strange sighting, truth be told, since after seeing a lot of other dogs both in the station and inside trains, none of them wore diapers.

Additionally, I also saw various family dynamics of harried travelers with children which piqued my interest. The Italians seemed relatively calm with their broods, not stressed or hyper. The kids, mostly school-aged, were well-behaved if sometimes a bit squirrely, but didn’t appear to give their parents any trouble. I don’t know why I noticed these behaviours, but I found it stood out almost as a contrast to the general madness that a busy train station filled with masses of international travelers might imply.

Fascinating.

Fun facts about Milano Centrale

Milan opened their new train station in early 1930. It replaced an older, smaller station in an effort to accommodate the increasing passenger traffic through its terminal. The building has an imposing design with soaring metal arches and a lot of glass letting in natural light. It is said that the building’s facade intended to showcase the dominance of then Prime Minister Mussolini’s fascist regime.

I did not get a chance to explore this fascinating train station beyond the immediate track-side area due to the connecting train’s unexplained delay. However, near the public restrooms at the south end of the terminal I saw a small plexiglass-encased mock-up model of the train station. This is what Milano Centrale looks like on the outside.

Perhaps another time I will have an opportunity for a lengthier stay in this fascinating city and take in more of the architectural beauty that is Milano Centrale.

Security in the train station

I noticed quite a bit of police presence throughout our delay, and not just because we were seated close to the entrance door of what seemed to be a security office of some kind. The entire time I was sipping my illegal cappuccino, I saw local police, military personnel and even INTERPOL officers coming and going through the door at almost precise ten-minute intervals, as if this was their shift-change schedule.

At one point, a group of fatigue-clad military personnel were talking to a man and a young child, the girl looking a little wide-eyed but not necessarily scared. She appeared to be about ten, and it wasn’t clear from my vantage point if she was lost or if she and the adult man were looking for someone. The body language of the female military officer indicated that perhaps the girl was separated from someone; maybe the man noticed and brought her to the police? I’ll never know what the real situation was, but I did observe their interactions for quite some time.

The security at Milano Centrale appeared more intense than I had noticed in airports from my recent international air travel days (through Toronto’s Pearson airport and Zürich’s Kloten Flughafen). On some level, I found it reassuring to see the many armed personnel given how busy the train station was that weekend. Was the heavy police presence standard for this terminal? I couldn’t find anything online indicating that April 21 was unusual, so I’m going with the assumption that they always have heavy police presence at the large, international railway stations. Meanwhile, all the security personally appeared relatively calm despite the heavy arms they carried.

Border control between Switzerland and Italy

It was a little perplexing how lax the border control was between Switzerland and Italy. Our route from Zürich to Milan included several stops including Chiasso where passport control was to occur prior to entering Italy. Incidentally, we never saw a single Italian border control person pass through our wagon.

Side note: on our return trip, the Swiss border control came through our wagon during the requisite stop in Chiasso but neither of the men even glanced in our direction. They purposely marched toward a man sitting behind us and spent a good five minutes questioning him and scanning his documents. I have no idea what that was about, but the word ‘profiling’ did enter my mind. He may have had a somewhat exotic look but he did not, at least to me, appear ‘foreign’ looking in terms of his skin colour or general appearance.

It occurred to me later that no one knew I had entered Italy until the day I used a credit card to pay for some gelato in Aosta Valley. I had left Switzerland’s border and entered Italy without a single person asking me for my documents. Had I not paid for the gelato with a credit card, there would not have been a trace of me staying in a foreign country.

I find this mind-boggling, especially because I had been a frequent border-crosser between Canada and the US for many years. The amount of drama I was subjected to on a regular basis trying to leave Canada for a business event in the US, or worse, coming back into my country of birth was the polar opposite of the lax, laissez-faire attitude of the European border control people between Switzerland and Italy.

Fascinating.

Delay and final destination

Our connecting train to take us to Turin from Milan was local (not high-speed) and announced its delayed arrival in ten-minute increments. There wasn’t anything to do but wait, which was a little frustrating when you don’t know how much time you have to do anything other than sit and wait. Will I have time to pee? Should I go browse the bookstore? Do I have time to wander to the other end of the terminal and take pictures of statues?

Meh.

But the incoming train which would transport us to Torino Porta Nuova railway station finally arrived, and I glued myself to the window to snap a few pictures of the landscape.

An hour later, we finally arrived in Turin and were immediately picked up by more family and whisked away by car to our tiny hamlet of Saint Denis in Aosta Valley.

Stay tuned!

Video

I created a short little video and uploaded it to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. You’ll see some additional pictures in this 51-second clip. Enjoy!

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Thank you for reading. Until next time!

Claudette