The dinner plan was to drive to meet Bruno at work, then back to his apartment to collect some friends and off to dinner.
We were basically headed south, which meant heading around Milan during evening peak hour traffic. That part was slow going, although we did have some entertainment in the form of "ad hoc Italian road rules". One of the more amusing was the driver who decided to pull out and drive along the right shoulder to the next exit. He seemed a little surprised when he checked the rear vision mirror and found a police car there. Oops. Merged back in, and the policeman wagged a finger at him as they passed.
We finally found where (and more particularly which building) Bruno worked, and to my surprise, it was a printery. My family history is in the printing business, though it has been many years since any of us were actually involved with the production side. After some chit chat in Bruno's office, we had a tour of the plant. Ah, those smells I remember from so many years ago. Much of the machinery was vaguely familiar, but there were enormous differences in the composing area. My last experience of that was with real, lead type. Now that area is full of Macintosh computers with BIG screens.
Then we followed Bruno back to his apartment, which was built in an old cigarette factory. As Bruno is the first owner of the apartment, he had to furnish the kitchen, which was otherwise just bare walls and appropriate connections. The idea has some benefits - you get the kitchen you want, but then it's quite an additional expense.
But first the garage - underground mostly, dictated by the geography. And big enough for two cars, one behind the other. Or, in Bruno's case, a car and motorcycles.
This is NOT Bruno's hack! It's the Norris/Seavey world tour rig. From memory it's something like an R65, or at least it started as that! Looks like Jon and Bruno are checking out something down the rear.
Definitely a boxer.
After some socialising and "getting to know you" type chatting in Bruno's kitchen we hopped in Jon's car and headed off in search of dinner. I remember eventually reaching some town, and driving around looking for something or other, and then heading to the outskirts of town and finding Le Rubinie del Po a riverfront restaurant, although not too long ago it could have offered swim in dining when the River Po flooded and the restaurant had water in it!
The no longer flooding River Po, though given the height of the bridge it can obviously come much higher.
That's not me on the left, but our pleasant waitress as the rest of the table were busy in conversation.
Take TWO. What a hopeless bunch - ask them to smile nicely, and what do you get?
A more "sober" (though probably not in breathlyser measurements) group this time as our waitress snapped us - look how they behave for an authority figure!
After a very long dinner, we headed back to Bruno's apartment to drop the others off before we headed back to Monza. I can report first hand that there is little traffic around Milan or Monza after midnight! We arrived in the apartment a little after 2AM, and apparently (according to my notes) I mostly packed my suitcase for the return journey - a day early! Perhaps I wanted to be sure it would all fit while there was another shopping day left.
A good night's sleep (or what was left of it) ensued. Zzzzzzzz
Secular Milan
Italy In July