Sydney - travel diary

Sydney is not far from Canberra and so within four hours we reached our destination. Arriving at the central station we found a hostel (with no small effort) and had ourselves picked up. The hostel was not bad at all and run by a nice (and a tiny bit crazy) big young man with a smile always plastered on his face, named Nick.

The first thing we made sure to do was to phone our contact in Sydney: Mr Jimmy Pellizzari, honorary member (until the year 3000) of the biggest club of Trevisans in all of Australia, the Club Marconi. It's truly a historic club, the first to have been founded by the Trevisans who emigrated to Australia; born as a small gathering place to spend a few hours together, it has now become an organisation with a great many side activities, with even its own football team that plays in the Australian league. Anyway, apart from this chit-chat, Mr Jimmy fully welcomed our request to meet him and arranged an appointment for the following day directly at his home. For the rest of the day we did very little, because our tiredness prevailed and won out over the desire to take a first look at the city.

The following day, without wasting time, we set off to reach Mr Jimmy's house. To tell the truth it wasn't very easy to reach our destination because we got a bit confused with the metro and we even arrived late. Mr Jimmy was outside the house waiting for us and, without ever having seen us before, he stopped the taxi to make us get out (how he understood that those guys in the taxi were us, I still haven't figured out!). He had us come into the house and meet his wife Fabiola who offered us a coffee and some pastries. But Mr Jimmy is not one to waste time and so, even before finishing the coffee, he had us get into the car to go to the Marconi club, where the committee was waiting for him for a meeting.

And here I want to open a parenthesis on the magnificent and inimitable Mr Jimmy; an elderly man of eighty with a spirit and a desire to live and have fun that would make us twenty-six-year-olds envious. Witty and affable, we immediately hit it off to such an extent that it felt like we had found a new grandpa, never met before, with whom we had to make up for all the lost time. At the Marconi club everyone knows grandpa Jimmy, so much so that at the main entrance a large golden plaque is displayed listing all the names of the founding members and among those names, of course, Jimmy Pellizzari's is not missing! In the blink of an eye he had already introduced us to the club committee, to whom we wanted to leave some of our T-shirts as a gift. There are truly many Trevisans in Sydney and the club can count thousands of members (Trevisans or not... in fact, many are even Australian!).

And so we began to get to know them, simple and kind people, who although they have lived in Australia now for fifty or more years, feel more Trevisan than us. As usual all curious to know how things are going in Italy and many times more up to date than us on the affairs of our beautiful Italy. We truly felt pampered and thoroughly spoiled: everyone wanted to talk to us, exchange a bit of chit-chat, just talk about this and that, as if by being close to us they also felt close to Italy. The evening ended with a session of the club committee, in which it was decided that the Marconi club too would sponsor our trip: too kind, they wrote us a cheque for three hundred dollars! Not bad, eh! It doesn't take much for it! Learn! It was now ten in the evening and although Sydney is an altogether quiet city, grandpa Jimmy insisted that we stay to sleep at his place.

The next morning we had breakfast with the Pellizzari family and then lunch too and we returned towards our hostel. The rest of the day was dedicated to taking a first peek at the heart of Sydney, but without overdoing it because we had promised grandpa Jimmy that he would be our guide. Moreover, the following day he had invited us to the Casino for a big lunch and to introduce us to Alvin, a Chinese boy whom grandpa Jimmy considers a bit like a son.

On Sunday morning, in anticipation of the succulent little lunch that awaited us, we wisely decided to skip breakfast and after the traditional morning exercises we walked towards Town Hall, the place set for our second meeting with grandpa Jimmy. To reach our goal we found ourselves immersed in the parade organised by the Chinese community ahead of the new year. Already on our arrival the city was plastered with a series of billboards advertising the event, a sea of people skilfully and meticulously decked out in traditional costumes occupied the entire roadway waving their banners in the air. Jimmy was sitting on a high little wall in front of the Town Hall... how he managed to climb up there will always remain a mystery.

Ready to head towards the Casino with Jimmy and Mrs Fabiola, passing first through Darling Harbour, one of Sydney's harbours where an exhibition of vintage cars had been set up. Having entered the kingdom of gamblers we settled into the restaurant's waiting room to wait for Alvin's arrival; meanwhile we learned that the nice little Chinese guy was a skilled cook and that he would be useful to us in navigating the dozens of dishes that the restaurant's menu offered. The lunch in fact, for the modest sum of twenty dollars (twenty-five for non-members and naturally Jimmy couldn't not be one) offered the possibility of choosing among various qualities and quantities of succulent dishes that ranged from classic pasta to rice and then on to the main courses, capable of satisfying both meat lovers and fish lovers: there were roasts, prawns, clams and who knows what else.

Not to forget the side dishes, pizza, bread and, as in all respectable lunches, a ton of cakes and sweets to give diabetes to anyone who never had it. We certainly couldn't not try almost everything that occupied the very long tables but grandpa Jimmy was no slouch either, even treating himself to a little ice cream, skilfully garnished by the expert Alvin. It was now three in the afternoon and with our bellies about to explode, still assisted by the Pellizzari family, we headed this time to visit the fish market and then agreed on how to organise the next few days, deciding to dedicate Tuesday to visiting the city in the company of our inseparable guide.

The next day, still limping after the royal lunch, we decided to take a day to reach Bondi beach, the most famous city beach, making use of the free service provided by the hostel. Having got off the van, the view you could enjoy from the hill overlooking the bay is a spectacle to be offered on pay-TV. the reputation of best city beach is without a doubt deserved, although unfortunately the dangerousness of the ocean currents also makes it famous for the numerous cases of drowning, especially among inexperienced tourists who challenge the Pacific. In any case, besides the inevitable surfers, the sand was inhabited by an excessive number of sunbathing lovers all equipped with sunscreen with protection thirty given the dangerousness of the Australian sun: we of course complied and after a day spent roasting ourselves we returned to the hostel for dinner.

Tuesday, as agreed, was dedicated to visiting the city's beauties with Jimmy who, inevitably, was waiting for us as usual perched on the little wall in front of the Town Hall. The inevitable breakfast with a croissant and cappuccino and then off we go, a long walk awaited us among shopping centres, cathedrals and Parliament House. At lunchtime Jimmy took us to a small place specialising in pasta of every kind; this time though the host was Jimmy and it couldn't have been otherwise given that up to that point we had lived at his expense. We spent the afternoon between the bookshop, the conservatory, the botanical garden in which grandpa Jimmy granted us a precious interview to deliver to his son Peter who has been living in Italy for years now. Then it was the turn of Sydney's symbolic monument: the Opera House.

As usual, seeing a monument in person that you have always admired on television always makes its fine impression! The sad moment had now come to say goodbye to our guide, a charismatic presence that characterised our stay in Sydney and whom we were forced to leave with our hearts in tears.

The following day we spent in a delightful little neighbourhood called Manly, reachable with a forty-minute ferry ride. It's another place dedicated to the big surf guys who, having shed their office-worker clothes, rush to ride the waves.

We spent the last two days doing a bit of shopping, exploring other corners of the city and planning the next stages of our visit to Australia. In the blink of an eye the time came to return to the central station and catch the bus again for Coffs Harbour, the banana town.