This is a post, above all, in praise of the Italian town of Lodi near Milan. However, It is also a post in praise of all those other Lodis across the world, unassuming places into which travellers only ever stumble by chance. These places have so much to offer, and travels would be so much poorer without them.
Exotic Flavours of the Unforeseen in Lodi
“Stumble by chance” sounds as though the discovery of any such a place was merely a question of luck, but it is not. To the extent that luck is involved at all, it is the kind of luck that you can make for you yourself. Intrigued? Good, because I am going to tell you how to do this.
Let’s assume you have been planning a trip to one of Europe’s Behemoths of Culture, say to Venice. For weeks, you have read up on the city’s history, art, architecture and whatever else. Once you have arrived, you find that everything is just as the brochures had promised: the Mediterranean water is sparkling in the sunshine, the famous paintings in the museums look exactly as they did on your screens at home, and you are making good progress through your list of planned itineraries, ticking off all the major sights one by one.
But hold on a minute: may be everything is going a little too much as planned. The racecar driver Mario Andretti once said: if you have everything under control, you are not going fast enough.
I don’t know whether I would hire the man as my personal chauffeur, but as a general rule for life and, more specifically, for the organisation of a holiday this is valuable advice: if everything goes smoothly, you may not be taking enough risks.
Once your holiday is beginning to feel like a day at the office: once the sightseeing has slowly become a dutiful task rather than fun, it is time to take a break, a holiday from the stressful routines of holidaying.
Day trips and stopovers allow even the risk-averse and timid to taste the exotic flavours of the unforeseen. Don’t get me wrong. I fully sympathise with people who do not book a long holiday in places about which they know nothing – you cannot risk the annual family holiday be a total washout.
But for a day trip or a brief stopover from one place on your itinerary to the next, the balance of risks is different. Think about it: even if the day turns out a complete dud, it will still serve as a valuable experience, an introduction to the realities of life (not everything can be beautiful, interesting and fun) that you will be remembering for a long time. Which is not a bad pay-off for the price of a single day. And if your break produces priceless memories: each of those count as a bonus. Holiday stopovers are that rarest thing in life: a true win-win situation.
Which is why we should thank the Gods Of Travel for giving us places like Lodi.
Lodi is a good example for an almost perfect stopover, for one because of its location (between the “cultural behemoths” of Venice and Milan) but also because it gets nearly everything right, starting with those all-important first impressions.
The houses just outside the train station are in good nick and tastefully ornamented …
… while the Barbarossa Gardens a little further down invite you for a pleasant stroll. Admittedly, this may not be Italy’s most beautiful park, but the landscape designers of the Giardini have found an elegant solution to the tough challenge of prettifying a street that consists of two rows of cookie-cutter mid-20th-century apartment blocks.
We suggest you walk to the far side of the Barbarossa Gardens and then take the Salita Federico II on your way down.
Then take a left turn and continue past the church on top of the hill …
… before climbing one of the uphill stairways to reach the town centre.
This is when you must remember that you are on a break from your normal holiday routines. There is no need to know the history of every building that you see, to study the information panels or to guess what period these buildings may be from. Neither do you need to know who Paolo Gorini was.
Simply enjoy the matching hues of the cityscape behind his statue, …
… and the lush little garden in the back of the hospital with which he is apparently linked.
Lodi has places that can be very busy (we arrived on market day), …
… as well as places that invite quiet contemplation. (The Chiesa di San Francesco on Via Serravalle is a real find.)
There are a few green spaces, too, such as the Parco dell’Isola – which is where we met this young lady. (Judging from the expression on her face, skipping rope seems to be a lot more fun than I thought. Maybe I should give it a try).
A few steps away, you will find a castle, which looks authentic enough with its moat and outhouse ruins. Who built this, and for what purpose?
Let it rest. Look. Isn’t it pretty how the tower shimmers through the magnolia blossoms?
Leave the details of history for another day. Today, it is enough to notice the town’s sophisticated visual culture, which appears to span the centuries from the traditions of the classical period …
… to buildings of a more recent vintage.
No: Lodi is not as multilayered and exciting as Venice or Milan, but that exactly is part of its charm. Just like longer pieces of music (and life in general), a well-rounded holiday needs its quieter moments, too, intervals of rest and calm reflection.
If that is what you are looking for, Lodi is the right place for you.
