Italy and Italians

I thought it about time that I put fingertip to keyboard in recognition of the institution that is the Italian barbiere. The first barber shops in Rome have been traced to the 3^rd century BC, so you could say the Italians have had a lot of practice! Back in those days the slaves were bearded, whilst freemen were expected to be clean-shaven; these days the majority opt for the smooth approach. The full beard is rarely seen these days, but new slants on the traditional goatee have reached endemic proportions, with the Azzurri (Italy’s national football team) being largely responsible for many of the latest trends.

My barber occupies a prime site in the centre of the Via Nazionale in Cortona, flanked by chic bars, jewellers and fashion parlours, right in the middle of the passeggiata. All Cortona strolls by each day, peering through the plate glass. Inside they see a functional, unadorned room; bright lighting, a couple of old barbers’ chairs, newspapers and the usual barber shop paraphernalia. However, there is intangible mystery. Why this exalted site? Why always so busy? For the most part the customers are men in suits, or the pastel-shaded jumpers so beloved of the wealthy Tuscan gent, and their hair is already perfectly crafted. A small queue forms long before the door opens. Those in the know lean round, and are invited to return in, say, 35 minutes. It took many trims to see through the looking glass. This is more than just a place to get your hair cut. It is an institution, a comfort stop in the life of the ufficiale; the doctors, lawyers, accountants and commandanti who run Cortona and every other provincial town from Alto-Adige to Calabria. Here they take a break from busy schedules to look their best, to relax and chat discreetly, or not so discreetly as the case may be...

With a stiffener in the bar next door in I go, with awe and trepidation. Scissors flash in mid air. Combs lined with razors subdue the thickest barnet. Friends stand in the door to chat, whilst an eye is always kept out for the more scantily clad foreign students. I panic inwardly about the maestro’s concentration. But the show goes on regardless. I tend to only go for the basic haircut, but I have seen older gents receiving all sorts of bizarre treatments heretofore unknown to me. Useful hairs, the ones that might stop spiders crawling into one’s nose or ears, are attacked without mercy, usually with a lightning snip, sometimes barbecued in a terrifying whirl of flaming cotton wool and methylated spirit. Perhaps I have a few years ahead of me before I am able to enjoy these particular mysteries of the barber’s shop, but I find them fascinating to watch. Out comes the cut-throat razor and the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention before being whipped away in a matter of seconds, leaving the skin almost smarting from its new exposure to the air. A final aromatic spray, and the performance ends. I retire to the bar to recover, and to check that the back of my head does not look like a receding duck. But the finish is always impeccable. A good trim can last for weeks, the experience far longer.

Whilst sitting in the leather throne, one can hear snippets of the most remarkable gossip. Perhaps the assumption is that, being a straniero (foreigner), I will not understand or be remotely interested in the identity of Signora X’s latest amante, or that Signor Y has decided to trade in his own signora for a younger model. It is a fiercely masculine domain, with marital gossip making way for the inevitable discussions about the Italian males’ three favourite topics (other than ladies of course): football, politics and food, in that order. It seems that the all-male sanctity of the barber’s shop is drawing the younger generation of Italians. Whilst the older generation have long enjoyed the relaxing ritual of the cut-throat shave, with its hot towels, thorough soaping and the nerve-wracking flick of the razor in a stranger’s hands, it seems that this small indulgence is making a comeback with today’s would-be Lotharios. What better way to hit the town on a date with Maria than pay a trip to the barber’s at lunchtime to ensure that the smooth look lasts well into the evening? So the next time you find yourself in Italy and feel the need for a little pampering, put down your copy of GQ and head to the nearest barbiere for a spot of old-fashioned treatment. Don’t do it if you are in a hurry however; as with all the best things in Italian life, apart from Ferraris, these things must never be rushed if they are to be enjoyed.

Driving in Italy

Picture, if you will, exiting Pisa airport in your newly rented Renault Twingo; it is your first time driving in Italy... You have negotiated the rental queues and decided, perhaps against your better judgment, to proceed straight to the car instead of knocking back the double coffee that you probably needed after your 4am wake up and bleary-eyed drive to Stansted. At once confident yet somehow dreading the drive ahead, your left hand hits your door as you reach for a gear stick that is not there. After making a vain attempt to disguise this glaring mistake from your fellow passengers, and this time using your right hand, you urge the car into 3^rd as you get onto the slip road for the superstrada. You look in your wing mirror and spot a lone car, probably an Alfa, approaching at great speed in the inside lane. Assuming that the Alfa will pull into the fast lane to facilitate your entry onto the motorway, you confidently accelerate, only to discover that the Alfa has no intention of pulling over and that, in fact, you must screech to a grinding halt and wait your turn. Welcome to the wonderful world of Italian driving, where few rules apply and the usual habits of road safety are curiously absent.

This is not to say that the Italians are bad drivers of course, rather that there is a controlled abandon to their driving that the uninitiated, at first experience, may find somewhat humbling. So, your Twingo has made its way shakily onto the superstrada, heading for Florence, and you are quietly availing yourself of the car’s abilities and, probably, its incapacity to accelerate faster than your sit-on lawnmower. Stopping en route for a coffee break at one of the many petrol stations along the way, you note the Alfa that caused your initial fright at the beginning of the journey. The driver, late twenties with dark hair and darker shades, is filling up with petrol whilst simultaneously puffing on a cigarette and shouting into his mobile at someone whom he obviously considers to be some sort of idiot. Brushing aside your anxieties you hit the road once more, this time careful to avoid the assumption that someone will actually let you onto the motorway in front of them. Whilst overtaking your hundredth lorry, creeping past on a bend with a few inches to spare on either side, you glance at the rearview mirror and, behold, Alfa-man is back. There appears to be no outward sign of his slowing down as he careers towards the backside of your trembling Twingo, halogen headlights flashing, and then suddenly the lights are gone. Can he have disappeared, somehow found a third lane to undertake you in? No, he is so close to your back bumper that you cannot see his headlights anymore. Urging your poor lawnmower on to an almost impossible shriek, you attempt to overtake faster; after all, you can’t pull over into the truck can you, even though that appears to be what Alfa-man wishes you to do. A gap appears up ahead and you, your lawnmower and its now sweating passengers breathe a collective sigh of relief as Alfa-man whisks past in a flurry of petrol and tobacco fumes. Do not worry, a few miles up ahead you will find him parked behind a Carabinieri car with lights flashing; a hefty fine and a few points on the license, lovely.

Back when Charlie and I lived in San Gimignano and worked as travel reps, we used to advise our clients on day trips to see the nearby towns and cities. When Florence came up, the advice was always the same; park at Piazzale Michelangelo and walk down into town, thus avoiding the hazards of the “ten-lanes-no-lines” fiasco that one finds in and around the centre. Even my father, a seasoned driver who knows every conceivable route to anywhere in mainland Britain, was reduced to a wreck in the passenger seat of my car as we blithely slalomed across traffic, negotiating Florence’s insane and ever changing one-way system. However, once you have mastered the combined arts of acceleration over braking, courageous use of lateral movement and never allowing too much space to develop between you and the car in front, then driving in Florence or any other major Italian city can actually be quite fulfilling. Even the country roads are not devoid of excitement. Take the omnipresent white Fiat Panda with its octogenarian driver, mix it with Alfa-man, a couple of Porsches and a few tractors for good measure, shake them all up together, add the cigarettes, mobile phones and an unwillingness to use indicators properly and you have a recipe for countless pleasant journeys. Just don’t forget: give an Italian an inch and he’ll park in it.

To dress or not to dress...like an Italian

For those very few of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting Italy, you may not be aware of the extent to which fashion grips the average Italian. Take a look at any fashion magazine and you are likely to find that half a dozen of the first pages are Italian brands with slick ads for sunglasses, footwear and fashion. From these images one could be forgiven for assuming that every Italian looks like an extra in a Prada shoot. This is not quite the case, but there is a consciousness about dress that is omnipresent and all-pervading. I recently saw a quiz show on television where the contestant had to choose the fashion “no-no” from the four options given to him; I think the correct answer was the wearing of Bermuda shorts with a sock/trainer combo. Although some people may think that shorts with white socks and trainers is rather fetching as a weekend-strolling-by-the-river sort of outfit, you will not find the average Italian debasing their fashion conscience with such sordid informality. No, over here it seems you either dress up or stay at home.

When we look back at photos of our first years in Italy, we realise that we have not managed to escape the Italianisation of our own dress sense. When we arrived in Italy in the hot summer of 1999, our clothing tastes owed much more to a love of retro 70’s tracksuit tops and flared cords than to the glossy boutiques of Florence or Rome. Whilst these glossy boutiques are still slightly out of range, we have certainly begun to dress up rather than down. Seven years ago the idea of wearing beige suede, slip-on driving moccasins, without socks, would have filled me with horror. These days no summer is complete without them; I am even wearing them right now. The fact that my friends back in the UK really are filled with horror when they see me sporting these most Italian items of footwear means that I have to be careful when packing for trips back.

OK, so I may be guilty of dressing up occasionally and trying to look like I might have just stepped off a yacht in Porto Ercole, but there are certain things at which I try to draw the line. One of these things is the Italian preoccupation for logos; all shapes and sizes, almost exclusively written in English and often brilliantly misspelled. Whereas for most Brits a trip to Italy may be a dream holiday, whether for culture and history or food and wine, for countless young Italians the reverse is true. Ask many of them and their life dream is to visit England (especially London), the country of “Laddy Dee” (Lady Diana), the true pint, “ooligans” and the promise of unbeatable fashion. They may not think much of our food, but they do seem to think that Inghilterra is at the summit of trend in many other ways. This is evidenced by the profligate use of Union Jacks and English witticisms on clothing, that are either unintelligible, or else only wearable if the owner does not understand what is written on his or her chest. Much of this trend derives from sportswear and the now internationally recognized team/country/club polo shirts or track tops. One of the main exponents of this fashion genre was an upmarket polo label from South America, but cheap copies have now spread in terrifying proportions to local street markets up and down Italy. Walk down any large Corso on a weekend afternoon and you will be hard pushed not to spot a variety of outfits expressing the bearer’s allegiance to such delights as the “Fotbol teem Kuala Lumpur”; with a Union Jack on one sleeve and probably a Rising Sun on the other, just for good measure.

There are of course other trends that set the Italians apart from the rest. On your travels you may be lucky enough to spot a “logo folder”; the phenomenon whereby a jumper tied at the waist is carefully folded such that the logo is showing at the front for all to see. Alternatively you may remark on the slavish adherence to the seasons; how the winter jackets come out on 1^st of November whether the winter has arrived or not. Whatever the weather, there really is not much room here for slouching and in this sense we poor foreigners tend to stand out like proverbial thumbs. As hard as you try, you just cannot quite carry it off like the Italians do. If you cannot walk the passeggiata with a polo shirt emblazoned with “Soccen League Champion Ship”, or you lack the essential summer slip-on driving shoes, then at least try to do one thing: avoid the shorts with socks combo.