return to IKEA and the other side of Garda.
September 25th, 2007 by SteveCalled up Citycar yesterday. We are renting wheels. I am to meet Francesca at Portoni Borsari around 9:30, then we will hit the road to IKEA Brescia. I recently read about a Roman battle during the time of Constantine near Brescia. Constantine’s armies raided Verona as well, did battle at the walls and then moved down South to Rome with the goal of kicking out Maxentius and seizing the Empire.
The Brescia Ikea is in the middle of an open area, all dug up and under construction. Around it run a tangle of access roads and turning circles; it’s a rough commercial zone on the outskirts of a town, not very pretty, perpetually hazy it seems, and then there’s IKEA with it’s big, pre-fab box building. We get a kick out of all the nifty designy stuff, those fake rooms and the umlaut in the names. I liked it better back when the appliances decorating the environments were made out of molded plastic; should’ve grabbed a couple of those when I had the chance.
I love the meatballs. The regular Italian-style coffee bar with panini seems more popular than Ikea’s presumably northern European fare. It’s a tough sell; Lingonberry jam, salmon and potatoes boiled, meat balls with no red sauce. I should say that, today, there were a few folks of the Veneto ordering the IKEA-style meal —more than at other times we’ve been here, I thought— not a bad crowd, in fact.
Once, when I was around 10 or 11, Mom and I went to Houston for a week while she was designing a play at The Alley Theatre. We stayed in a hotel near the theatre. I guess there had to have been a kitchen in our pad, because we cooked there most of the time. We had some kind of Stouffer’s (sp?) Swedish Meatballs, tasted just like the IKEA ones. That flavor, it gives me a feeling of home.
We must buy a big wardrobe, or “guardaroba”. Our new pad is great in almost all respects, but there is no closet room. We got a couple of cheap units at DiTuttoDiPiu, to get us through the move, but they’re really not cutting it. There’s a helpful cat passing by, we get our business done in Italian, even crack a joke to the effect that it’s best not to argue with one’s wife over matters of decoration. L. had great solution for our kitchen table problem. Must get house finished up for Mom’s arrival October 10th.
Now that we’re “part of the problem”, burning petrol in our four-wheel chariot, set free on the craggy flanks of giant Lake Garda, we cannot pass up this opportunity to take a joy ride. We are driving along the Western side, up and up a high road till we can see a whole sweep of the lake, all the distinct areas of current pushed by the breeze and shimmering in the direct sun. We pass Salo’ in it’s little bay of the lake, come down from the high road into a stone-built town called Fasano. There was once a fortress there. It’s so nice to “get lost” with my girl, I must say. We did this sort of thing a lot more often last year.
Visit Limone sul Garda, right on the rocky shore of the narrow northern strip. Full of Germans. Not such a lovely crowd, or maybe it’s just the weather. It’ been staunchly hazy all day. The mist seems, of its own, to make a try at lifting off, but some weight keeps it pushed back down, close to earth, where the burly Germans are slogging up the hill to the hotel and pizzeria, or smoking cigarettes while waiting for the barge ride. A barge ride would have been fun, come to think of it.
With the Summer season finally ending, there’s a slow, desultory vibe in this vacation town. The folks are poised for winter. It has the same melancholy charm as being on the Lido in mid-October back in ’01, or going to Nag’s Head, end of season, with DD and JJ a couple years back. Laura’s little dog Roxie was still around then; I remember she brought her to the beach house DD had rented.
So L. and I dig wandering through the world at odd hours. We go around the very Northern tip of Lake Garda and head back South for Verona. It’s a quick enough drive once you hit the A22. Always so fun to day-trip with L. Gotta do it more often, though it’s tough without a car.
