On going home to Varese

Varese is not I suppose somewhere I would naturally have ended up in.* 

It is a small Italian town of just under 82, 000 people, and an hour from Milan and depending on the road you choose about 15 minutes from the Swiss border.

It has its own grand lake, a pretty impressive mountain and a fine 18^th century town hall.

And that is about it.  But it is where we go once or twice a year to visit family and so it is a bit like a second home.  More than that it is a comfortable place to be.

I can walk into the centre in just fifteen minutes, wander a maze of little side streets which as if by magic open onto small piazzas and find in the shops all that I need.

And as always there are the bars, most like this one in the Corso Giacomo Matteotti spread out on to the square lapping the statute and pulling in the shoppers.

Today it had attracted a mixed bunch and I suppose if the weather had been a little drier and warmer there would have been many more.

It is a good spot.  Directly ahead is the archway that leads to the church of San Vittore, while behind me another more discrete set of doors leads into a hidden place. 

Here in what was once a monastery with its cloisters on three sides is a quiet spot.

A mix of shops, offices and a restaurant it is the sort of place you stumble across by accident and then keep getting drawn back.

I love the fading wall paintings and the fact that people still live just beyond the wall in an even smaller enclosed yard just to the south of the cloisters.

And that is one of other the attractions of the place, that people do still live here in the centre, so even as the city workers leave for the day and before the evening crowd arrive, there is still a buzz about the place.

So while stillness descends and there is a waiting expectation of what is to come this is no ghost town.

It may be quieter but the place has not been deserted.  All of which makes for a manageable place to live.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Varese, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Varese