If you're going to Italy, stay here

Keys turned in to the central lost and found office for the Milan subway system.

Eight days after my passport, driver's license, cash, and credit and ATM cards were stolen on the subway in Milan, I reluctantly left Venice and drove to Gallarate, a bustling commercial center near the international airport. 

I picked Gallarate for my last three nights in Italy because I didn't want to spend any more time in Milan.

Gallarate was perfect for day trips to Italy's lake country, where I had a bountiful lunch of antipasti and fish from Lake Maggiore in a town called Angera. 

I also had great dinners at the Galaxy Grill in Gallarate, where I was served a wood-roasted whole branzino, and Compagnia delle Cozze or The Mussel Company, which offered an unusual lasagna in a fish sauce, warm fish salad with potatoes and olives, and coal-oven vegetable pizza. (See earlier posts.)

My room at the Hotel Astoria was twice the size and half the price of the postage stamp I occupied at Best Western Hotel Galles on Piazza Lima in Milan. Best of all, the desk staff in Gallarate was everything the Hotel Galles staff wasn't.

I parked my Alfa Romeo 159 turbo-diesel in front of the hotel, rolled my suitcase inside and gave my name and passport to Massimiliano, who confirmed my reservation. Then, I asked him to call the lost and found in Milan to see if any of my valuables had been found. I also gave him the number of the Fiat Center in Milan, where I had to return the car. He said he would call the lost and found right away.

About an hour later, I pulled up to the Fiat Center and learned that the desk clerk from the hotel in Gallarate was on the phone with a Fiat employee, telling him that my small, black-leather bag, my passport, my credit cards and everything else had been turned in to lost and found.

But when I took the phone, Massimiliano said I had to get to the office in about 35 minutes, before it closed at 4 p.m. for the weekend, or I would have to wait until Monday to retrieve everything. (I was supposed to catch an early flight home that Monday.) He gave me the address and Fiat called me a cab.

The driver didn't speak that much English, but I gave him the address and used his cellphone to call Massimiliano, who explained the urgency of the situation to him. He plunged into rush-hour traffic and took advantage of the tram-taxi-bus lanes in Milan to gain time. 

Meanwhile, Massimiliano called lost and found employees to tell them we were trying to get there before closing time. We made it. I had to wait 15 minutes while forms were filled out for me to sign, I paid a small fee and my small, leather bag and its contents were handed to me. The thief took $300 in cash and discarded the rest.

Then the tax driver took me to a train station for the return trip to Gallarate, where I checked into the hotel, showered and changed for my fish-and-roasted-vegetable dinner and a celebratory glass of wine.

Dining out in Gallarate, Italy

This vending machine in Gallarate, Italy, dispenses unpasteurized milk.

 

Two highlights of dining out in Gallarate, Italy, were an unusual lasagna in a fish sauce and a whole branzino grilled over a wood fire.

I spent my last three nights in Italy in Gallarate, a bustling commercial center north of Milan that is near Malpensa International Airport. Hotel rooms and restaurant meals are far cheaper in Gallarate than in Milan.

You certainly don't sacrifice quality when eating out in Gallarate, which is in the province of Varese. 

And I found that employees behind the desk at the Hotel Astoria on Piazza Risorgimento were far more concerned for my welfare than the preening desk clerks of the Best Western Hotel Galles in Milan, where I paid more than $200 a night for a tiny room with a bathroom too small for a bidet (not 200 euros, as I wrote originally).

My first dinner in Gallarate was at the Galaxy Grill, a restaurant run by an Iranian chef and his Brazilian wife, with jazz tunes filling the dining room. It's best known for grilled meat and fish.

I ordered a whole branzino and grilled vegetables, and it was far more than I could finish. The chef agreed to make me a sandwich with leftover grilled vegetables and cheese for my day trip the next day.

I arrived early for dinner, around 7, after driving to Gallarate from Venice in a downpour. I was the only diner at that hour, and the chef had to start a wood fire to grill my fish. He gave me a cup of soup to start, but more than 30 minutes would pass before I got the branzino, which was stuffed with herbs and lemon.

It was worth waiting for -- about 12 inches long, moist and flavored by the wood fire. I demolished it, alternating bites with grilled zucchini and eggplant. The meal, with the complimentary sandwich and an after-dinner drink, was enough for two, and cost 31 euros, or about $44 at an exchange rate of $1 to 70 euro cents.

My next two dinners were at one of the most popular restaurants and pizzerias in town -- Compagnia delle Cozze or The Mussel Company, which was on the same piazza as my hotel. 

My first meal was on a Saturday night and I walked over to join the line of people waiting for the two-level restaurant to open for dinner at 7:30 -- mostly family groups and young couples. Not long after I was seated, the place was full and people waited inside for tables.

I started with a wonderful seafood salad, which was made to order and served warm with potatoes, olives and a little pesto sauce I wiped up with bread. The mixed seafood was fresh and tender. 

I followed with a wonderful lasagna with fish sauce and creamy bechamel -- just two by three inches -- and ended with a mixed salad, which was twice the size of the salads I ate in Milan. Wine, bread and water brought the meal to 33 euros or $47.

I cut my bill almost in half the next night with my first pizza of the trip, a mixed salad, wine and water for 17.20 euros.

The vegetarian pizza, brought to the table unsliced, was oval, and about half the size of a small pizza in North Jersey. There were more fresh vegetables than fresh mozzarella cheese, and the soft, chewy dough was deliciously scorched by the coal oven.

Restaurant food is expensive in Italy, and often, there is a long wait between courses because your dish is being made to order. To make matters worse, I usually ordered too much food and had no one to share it with. Perhaps all that food was meant to soothe me because I was traveling alone.

But if you consider that the tax and tip are included in the total bill, the meals seem to be a better value. And the quality is always high.

Grazie e arrivederci. (Thank you and see you soon.)

Galaxy Grill, Via Tenconi, 12, Gallarate, Italy; 0331-245662.

Web site in Italian: Galaxy Grill

Compagnia delle Cozze, Piazza Risorgimento, 8, Gallarate, Italy; 0331-776933.