Via Idro
Via Idro is a dead end at the border between Milan and Cologno Monzese, hidden in the folds of the suburbs. It welcomes us with a diversion from via Padova and welcomes us to enter another Milan. The double soul of via Idro immediately begins: half a street, half a bicycle path, crossing the city from the central Melchiorre Gioia close to the Martesana river, a faithful partner which lets us be carried away from the flow to imagine clean and clear waters in which ducks and cubs do not lean on garbage but swim in freedom. The moltitude of environments found in such a short street is charming, the majority of them are unexpected: from the austere industrial sheds in bad conditions that hide hypertechnological industries, to the colonial houses with private access by bridge on the river, passing by little vegetable gardens enclosed by old rusty clothes lines, taken care by old retired people for some season vegetable. Up to the ploughed fields, full of horses and sheep, which lead us to the nomadic camp. A camp which is nomadic only in its name, as it has been settled there for more than 20 years and whose inhabitants will be evacuated, Italian Roma of Croatian origin (about 200 people), to create a transit camp of different ethnic groups, with "guests" staying for a maximum of two weeks. This is the new project that the Lombardy region has for the district in sight of Expo 2015, a project that displeases everybody, both residents who expect an increase of criminality for the temporariness of the guests and the nomads themselves, who do not want to leave their current domicile for unclear alternatives. After having passed this no-man's land you are taken to the obstruction after which people can just continue on foot or by bike: the Lambro river passes under the Martesana, a cross of waters and smells where somebody still tries to fish. Via Idro stops here, out of the tunnel, under the tangential road in the municipality of Cologno Monzese, but the bicycle path continues up to Trezzo d'Adda and is still all to be discovered.
