In Domodossola

It's been many years since I took the Centovalli Express from Locarno to Domodossola. It was in winter, everything was snowed in and looked gorgeous.

This time, it is summer, I'm travelling the othet way 'round, from Domodossola to Locarno. The view is splendid, the couple next to me however close to unbearable for the woman is the kind of resolute Italian housewife with a voice that makes you long for earplugs. Difficult to imagine her husband ever disagreeing with her.

Domodossola had been a surprise. I had imagined some kind of industrial town (no idea what had made me think that), instead I was met by an agreeable city with lots of outdoor cafés and ice cream parlours. In one of them, I asked for the direction to my rented appartement and was instructed by a Brazilian couple how to get there. To be more precise: the woman told the man to accompany me to the appartement. On the way, he let me know he was from São Paulo and that he worked as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. 

When I enter the main door of the building, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by her young daughter, who is smiling at me inquisitively, asks whether I'm Spanish. Much to my surprise, my Spanish seems to have influnced my Italian pronunciation. It is however not the first time that I'm made aware of it.

There are quite some Cubans in town, says the woman running a coffee bar near the Station that opens in the morning at 4:30. At 4:30? I wonder. For the commuters to Briga, Vispa and Sempione, she informs me. And, there are also Thais, Brazilians and and and ... but the Cubans had their own place where they used to dance to their loud music. 

When having my nails done, an elderly ('though probably younger than me) and not exactly slim woman sitting next to me is having hers done. She is sporting a variety of tattoos, and I wonder once again what people makes wear tattoos – in my world (I'm aware I'm of another generation), tattoos belonged to drunken sailors and members of prison gangs..

As always when visiting places I'm not familiar with, I'm walking through the streets, handy camera in hand. I have no other plan than to be open to what my eyes are discovering.