Milan Cathedral and Bordello

Back to my ''posh'' Stillman and Birn travel sketchbook reminiscing about Italy and starting with that amazing wedding cake of a cathedral in Milan; the downside ..... we stayed in a bordello! Ahhhh, student trips! 

Here you can see my first sketch and the equipment I used to do it, I'm enjoying the crisp lines this pigment liner gives, great for all the diddly lines I make and now back to the bordello! 

In 1985 my class at the art school headed off for a study trip to Milan, Lake Como and Venice. Things didn’t get off to a good start, the airline was a ''no name'' (poor students) whose stewardesses didn’t even have uniforms and stood at the back of the cabin smoking. Having arrived safely however, on reaching Milan bus station 11 of the 13 in the group had been pickpocketed on the bus, I fortunately had pinned my purse into the lining of my rucksack, a tip found in one of my Dad’s travel guides (he had books about everything even though he'd never been there). We were young, naive and impressionable, the gorgeous looking ladies in fur coats standing by luxury cars in front of our hotel wowed us totally, we never stopped to wonder what they were actually doing there. 

A night of coming and going, meeting a constant flow of strange men as we went to the loo on our floor ...... brought clarity, we were staying in a brothel! Shock, horror ..... even worse was the fact that the ladies of the night were a million times better dressed than we were, this did not prevent us being accosted on the way to our room. 

It was no use crying over spilt milk, we did however take the precaution of going to the bathroom in small groups, one member of the group covering the keyhole (which was the size of a plate)  with a towel to prevent an involuntary '' peep show''. During the day the street was a normal street in the centre of Milan but I must say that I was surprised generally that after 6pm you hardly saw an Italian Donna out, even in restaurants. 

Our shock at living in a brothel was only surpassed when the first one of us got a bout of the 'flu. In the chemist's we tried to explain the problem and were given ''suppositories'' ..... now that was culture shock! Milan was definitely no Milngavie.