Hidden things on the Piazza Dante …. that film Blow Up ….. and a bit of Charlton

It’s odd how sometimes a picture offers up something you lost first time round.

Hidden things, Lugano, 2018

So, six years ago in Lugano I came across one of those fashionable shops in a very fashionable bit of the town selling the objects that only the rich will buy to casually dot around their apartments.

We were on a day trip from Varese in Italy and had taken the train across the border into Switzerland, and while the family shopped till they dropped in swish departmental stores I wandered the streets snapping away.

And on Piazza Dante I came across the shop and attracted by the door way I took the picture, which then sat with a heap of others and was forgotten.

Yesterday I came across the collection and as you do looked again at the picture of the shop and discovered the rather odd looking head which my friend Lois described as “creepy”.

Now the discovery was no “Blow Up” moment, that film from 1966 by Michelangelo Antonioni when a fashion photographer thinks he has unwittingly captured a murder on film during a photo shoot.

"Creepy" things on the Piazza Dante, Lugano, 2018

He only makes the discovery in the darkroom while processing the film and in the processing enlarging the image, which of courses offers up the film’s title “Blow Up”.

Not that my creepy head is in anyway as dramatic, but it points to what we see and don’t see in pictures we take.

Enjoying the joke, 2018

So on Saturday having taken the picture of the Arndale entrance in all its tall majesty with its neon signage I spotted the two women enjoying a joke.

And they became by far the most interesting subjects, leaving me to crop out the the tall entrance but leave a few of the passers by.

Nor is that all because going back and watching the film again over 50 years later I realized the park was Maryon Park in Chorlton close to where I grew up in Eltham.

Despite the close proximity it was a park I never visited which is a shame given that my Wikipedia tells me that the  area was was a collection of sand pits known as “Hanging Wood, and were presented to the London County Council in 1891 by the Maryon-Wilson family, and one of the pits became Maryon Park. 

Another pit became Charlton Athletic's football ground, The Valley.

The park was originally wooded and, together with what is now Maryon Wilson Park, was known as Hanging Woods. This was a wild wooded area and formed an ideal retreat for highwaymen who robbed travellers on Shooters Hill and Blackheath. 

Though it is popularly supposed that the wood was used for hanging those who were caught, a more likely explanation for the name is the wood's location on steep slopes so that the trees appear to hang from the slope. 

Maryon Park, Charlton, date unknown

Such woods are often referred to as 'hanging woods' the word 'hang' comes from the Old English 'hangra', a wooded slope).

The park was opened in 1891, with JJ Sexby, then chief surveyor to LCC's parks department, designing serpentine paths around the slopes of the hill".

 All of which was unknown to me and continuing the theme I could say its story had been hidden to me, but that would be a tortuous and perhaps contrived link from the original discovery from Lugano, so I won’t.

But l may have got confused with the street name which offers up more chances to play the hidden card.

Location; Lugano, and Charlton

Pictures; that shop in Lugano 2018 and  Maryon Park, Charlton, date unknown from the collection of Kristina Bedford and reproduced in Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014

*Maryon Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryon_Park

Celebrating 127 years

The sign in the window announced that the hotel was celebrating 127 years of offering a bed, some breakfast and a welcome to the weary traveller stopping off for the night in Lugano.

And on that warm sunny day in March this chap had decided to sit outside and watch the day go by with a nod to the local paper.

He may have been a resident in the hotel or just a passer by.

I know I should have asked him but he seemed to intent on reading the paper.

Location; Switzerland

Picture; outside a hotel in Lugano 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Visiting the posh places ....... in Lugano

It had started snowing in the early hours of Tuesday morning and by 8 am there was a thick carpet of the stuff across the bit of Switzerland we were due to visit.*

But a day and half later it had all but gone and while there were pockets of heaped snow at the side of some roads the weather turned hot enough for most people to walk around without a coat and for some to sport just a tee shirt.

So we left Varese headed into Switzerland and spent the day in Lugano, rubbing shoulders with some very well off people, a couple of coach loads of tourists and a school party.

And before we got to the Lake there were the customary shops to visit.

Location; Lugano, Switzerland

Pictures; Lugano, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Passing the time ............... dining alone

An occasional series of pictures of people and places.

Location; Lugano Switzerland

Picture; Lugano, Switzerland 2009,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Rubbing shoulders with the rich in Lugano

It has been an odd week here in Varese just north of Milan.

We arrived to the threat of rain and grey clouds, managed snow in the middle of the week and enjoyed tee shirt weather for the last couple of days.

And as you do we headed up to Switzerland on Thursday to stay with Tina’s sister who like quite a few from Varese now works and lives across the frontier.*

It is not much more than a 20 minute drive north and the crossing point is at Ponte Tresa by the river that runs into the lake beside the town.

It is a busy crossing point but one with almost a complete absence of passport control.

So, while you pass first an Italian check point followed a minute later by a Swiss one there is little to mark the passage from one country to another.

The police uniforms are different and of course so are the flags, but everyone speaks Italian on both sides, the shops look the same and the only difference is that instead of Euros everything is priced in Francs.

That said our Euros were accepted in the shops, bars and restaurants with the only hiccup that change comes in  Francs.

Not that many linger in Ponte Tresea.  It has a small population of just 796 of which 27% are foreign nationals and 20% of the work force crosses into the town from Italy.

And like so many of those crossing into Switzerland on Thursday we were heading further north to one of those small villages which boasted just a pharmacy, a petrol station and a convenience store, surrounded by mountains.

Nothing much stirs here after about 4 in the afternoon and what strikes you most is the silence.

All of which is in direct contrast to Lugano where we washed up on the Friday.  It is a place that is just as I remember it, full of money shed loads of tourists and stunning views.

It starts with the lake and the mountains beyond and extends back from the shore line with a heap of little squares and tiny streets all full of designer shops and up market restaurants with the odd tacky tourist outlet and inevitably a McDonalds and Burger King.

But there is more as we discovered on our way to Mt. Sighignola from which you can look down on the town.

I had forgotten just how hair raising the trip was and how much I could suffer from vertigo, but it was worth it.

On balance though I preferred the town which in the space of an hour had become even more busy and confirmed the decision to head back to Ponte Tresa and the  journey back over the frontier to Varese.

Location, Lugano, Switzerland

Pictures; Lugano, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson