Milan – Italy

Remember the ‘very welcoming café next-door,’ and the need to find an Aperol Spritz from last time, well, let’s continue building the positive vibes for Italy. Firstly, the Aperol Spritz. Apparently, Aperol Spritz is something like three parts Prosecco, two parts Aperol and one part fizzy water (or Club Soda for those of you more sophisticated amongst us). Aperol is a bitter aperitif with a top secreto recipe; an aperitif is something served before a meal to get ready for a feed. Ultimately, it tastes like shite and has only gained world-wide attention because it’s bright orange and looks good in an Instagram photo, but no fear for I and a far less extroverted colour, Amber, have dared to make Aperol Spritz truly available to all by creating the Bougie Shandy, oh yeah, we did a very big thing. Remember the Turbo Shandy, it’s back with a 20s twist. The story begins after insulting every man seen with an Aperol Spritz after our first day at the circuit, but then felt compelled to have one ourselves, purely out of irony if nothing else.

Arriving back to the neighbourhood of our apartment we decided to stop at the café next-door upon the observation that two gentlemen were sat outside drinking the very radioactive-looking substance we sought after. I went in and ordered two Aperol Spritz and the Italian barman/waiter/café worker(?) asked if I wanted an aperitif or something along those lines. Having no idea what he meant I obviously nodded, smiled, said ‘si,’ and walked away with my Aperol Spritz. Thankfully, the drink was as disappointing and pointless as I remembered; meanwhile, whatever I had nodded and smiled to turned out to be a table full of food including a plate of meat and cheese, croutons, pizza, olives, crips, chicken and potatoes. Wine was needed. We left after paying €41 for all that food, two Aperol Spritz, and four glasses of wine – the loveometer continued to move in Italy’s favour. 

This brings us back to the racetrack, day two, Saturday, qualifying day. For alcohol, the bars only served Heineken or Aperol Spritz, both on tap, and for reasons that I cannot for the life of me remember we dared to wonder what it would be like to combine the two, a wonder likely to have materialised after a day of drinking, two Aperol Spritz and 4 glasses of wine the day before. Amber, as is perfectly acceptable for a lady at 11am on a Saturday turned to an Aperol Spritz and dared me (‘dared,’ taking into account we are in our 40s) to have a bit with my Heineken, I agreed, it was sensational, end of. So here it is, a Bougie Shandy; half lager, half Aperol Spritz, it’s bloody delicious especially if at an all-day event, it’s roasting, and you have to do it all three days on the bounce. Refreshments taken care of, qualifying complete, we hung back to miss the crowds at the train station knowing it would be significantly busier than the night before but confident we would be back in time to visit our now favourite local café. How wrong we would be. On arrival to the train station at 7pm, hours after qualifying had ended, we were greeted with a two-hour queue and I was firmly reminded of why Italy can be so infuriating at times. They had put no extra trains on, only one an hour ran to Milan, with the final one at 10pm and after that there was nothing. On top of this, the police were organising everything, calling people forward who were waiting for a train going the other way and generally doing work that surely police should not be doing. What was torturous wasn’t the size of the queue, but how it stood still for 50 minuets at a time. Upon nearing the platform, a man with a loudspeaker was announcing that there would be extra trains the next day with a train every 15 minutes from 4pm, then every 30 minutes from 5.30pm to 7pm, and then every hour until 10pm. The race wasn’t scheduled to finish until around 4.30pm – work that one out!  

Sunday, day three at the racetrack, race day, and the busiest day by far started with our ritual 8am takeaway coffee from the local café as we began the journey to Monza. We had the train to Monza sussed; we sacked off the shuttle buses to the track and instead chose to walk the 40-minutes which was a far nicer experience. Once at the track, it was busy, but everything worked, we had plenty of time and made the most of the Bougie Shandies seeking out shade wherever possible. In no time at all it was 3pm and the race began; two laps later a Ferrari slammed into a tyre wall and the race was stopped. Once it restarted, we were treated to one fine race with plenty of action. Yes, you watch a lot on the big screens; yes, they drive by in a blur; but the atmosphere is electric with a combination of the noise, the sheer feeling of the power coming from the cars, the crowd, and of course a friend who has an irrational emotional attachment to Lando Norris – all of this makes it rather fantastic. And, what’s more, this was rounded off by an Italian winning the Italian Grand Prix for the first time in 60 years causing a Ferrari-mad crowd having to celebrate Kimi Antonelli who drives for rival Mercedes. Not only did he win, he won starting from the back of the grid, benefiting from a little bit of luck with the race being stopped, but largely succeeding through raw pace and determination. 

With the race over, the track was opened up to the crowd, but we hung back in the grandstand to watch the podium on the big screen and avoid the initial rush. Our patience was rewarded a little later when going down onto the track and greeted with track staff handing out free salami cobs (bread rolls) to anyone that wanted one. No idea where that random act of kindness came from but we savoured every bite while washing it down with one final Bougie Shandy and then headed down the track towards the pitlane and starting grid. We didn’t rush, ambling down the track, amazed at people stealing the advertising posters from the side of the track because you know, who doesn’t want ‘Aramco’ or ‘Qatar Airways’ pinned up in the house. We had a sit down and watched the world go by while the sun finally retreated to a less scorching position in the sky. When we arrived to the starting grid, almost two hours had passed since the race had finished yet a crowd of Argentines kitted out in Messi shirts were patiently waiting and hoping to see their driver make an appearance – no one else had such a crowd, no one except one man, the race winner, Kimi Anonelli. As we made our way down the grid towards the Mercedes garage, there was a huge crowd chanting his name, cameras all up in the air, yet the press cameras up on the pit wall were pointing down into the crowd, and then, up popped Kimi from the crowd as he was pulled onto the pit wall – he had been crowd surfing. Still in his racing overalls, the Italian flag wrapped around him, he began to throw caps out to the crowd, but not whimsically, I don’t think he does anything half-heartedly, no, he threw them as far as he could, taking the odd selfie stick from time to time to take a photo for the lucky supporter. This guy turned 20 only a month or so ago, and this wasn’t a display of arrogance, it was a young man soaking up one of the greatest moments in his life to date and genuinely sharing it with the crowd. I am no super sports fan, but I have been very fortunate to see some great sporting events and moments and this was one that sits very close to the top, because even though I was watching from the back of the crowd, it still felt strangely intimate. 

You may have guessed that we hadn’t bothered with the trains, choosing instead to take our time, enjoy the moment, and upon leaving the track, enjoy one very last Bougie Shandy before beginning the walk down to Monza where we hoped to find some dinner before catching a quieter train to Milan. It’s a nice walk through a massive park. A walk that would have been beautiful and peaceful as night fell yet, ironically, did not materialise as we navigated past a fleet of around 50 empty buses all waiting to shuttle people down from the track to Monza, yet there was no one waiting for the busses at this point. We couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, finding that a table and somewhere half decent to eat in Monza wasn’t too difficult either was a mild surprise and before too long we found ourselves joining the table next door, a British group who we had been gossiping about over dinner, and turns out they had been doing the same with us. This was the way for the whole weekend, talking to people on the trains, or at dinner, and we met some great and interesting people from a foster parent getting the chance to take one of his kids to the F1 and AC Milan, to a Canadian couple who had one 10 year old child that had already visited 30 countries, and a guy who worked with paediatric cancer patients while in a relationship which clearly required a lot of love and patience. When summarised like this, it reads like a list of largely fortunate people, and it would be right to think that, but it was also really nice to sit listening to genuinely interesting people, all of which were doing far more noble things in their lives than myself. 

As for Italy, it’s been a tortured relationship, but the Milanese, take a bow, you were bloody brilliant and thank you for such awesome, genuine hospitality.