22 August 2007, Milan – Milan in August is a phenomenal thing. I don’t recommend it if you’re a tourist here for the first time because it can be quite frustrating looking for an open gelateria or pizzeria, but once you’ve lived here and have come to loathe the bad air quality, the cars on the sidewalks, the traffic and all the other unpleasant things that define this city, try staying here one August.

The air is a tad more breathable, you have the streets to yourself, there are no lines at the post office and everybody is smiling – either because they have just come back from vacation and are relaxed and happy or because they’re about to go. Oh and the crazy, whacked out guy in my building who is always yelling at me for parking my bike in the courtyard (something that is allowed, as it is allowed by law in every courtyard in Milan) has been gone for a month, hopefully getting a brainwash and some lessons on how to live near other people.

August is also the time that the Via Francigena gets a bit more traffic than usual so I guess that means it goes from one or two people a week walking to an average of three or four. Which, by the way, is really okay because part of what makes the Via Francigena really nice is that it has yet to be discovered by mass tourism. So if you are going to do it, better sooner rather than later.

It has been brought to my attention that a group of 27 cyclists from England aged 17 to 65 are in the middle of biking the entire length of the Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome to raise money to restore the cathedral in Canterbury. I spoke to one of them on Sunday and they were in Vercelli, which means that right about now should be passing over the Cisa Pass on their way into Tuscany. Holy cow, it sure is a whole lot faster by bike, it took me more than a week to get from the rice fields of Vercelli to the rainy Cisa with its expanse of forest and views of the surrounding hills.

If Ansa, the Italian newswire, is to be believed, the cyclists include a supreme court judge and a psychotherapist and before leaving they had already raised 80,000 pounds of the 100,000 they were hoping to gather during their trip.

In other Italian Via Francigena related news, Prime Minister Romano Prodi a month ago promised special funds to restore Italy’s pilgrimage routes. I know, you’ve heard that one before, so have I. Hope springs eternal in the human breast and here’s to hoping the Italian government actually does something rather than just talk.

I’m not sure that’s going to happen though because Prodi gave a rather clear signal that he’s not ready to put the money where his mouth is.

“We don't need to change the Constitution or make any major investments,” Ansa quoted Prodi as saying. “We just have to put our hearts into it.”

It would have been nice to be there to ask just what he means by that heart thing. I put my heart into becoming a professional baseball player and I didn’t even make the varsity baseball team at my high school. Sometimes heart is not enough Mr. Prodi.

Anyway, we’ll see. In the meantime, I know it has been a while since my last post, but I’ve been spending a lot of my time looking for the few open pizzerias and gelaterias here in Milan. By the way, a tip: if you do come to Milan in August, make sure you go around with a few peanuts in your pocket, or something equally caloric and easy to carry, because finding that gelateria or pizzeria that’s open can be quite a challenge. And when you have found the gelateria, be sure not to stain your shirt with some melting ice cream because finding a dry cleaner open is very literally impossible.

I posted three new videos from my walk onto the site, the one you can see from the homepage as well as the other two that are in the top row when you click on the video menu of the blog.

Oh, one negative thing about Milan in August…the mosquitoes are still here and since most of the city is at the sea or the mountains or abroad somewhere your chance of getting attacked by a squadron of those terrible insects is astronomically higher.