Versione italiana : https://nathjy.travel.blog/2020/09/13/missione-pasta-per-la-resistenza-franco-italiana/

While the notes of the famous music from the « Mission Impossible » series still ring in our ears, we leave the Orto della Fate with a heavy heart but happy to carry out an important mission for the Franco-Italian resistance. This morning, we had to manage to fit the merchandise in the suitcase while giving it the appearance of a normal tourist suitcase. At last, everything is tidy, well aligned and nothing can arouse suspicion, except perhaps its weight. This suitcase carries within it the new weapons of the fight for the planet and perhaps even the seed of a revolution for a better world. It is a kind of subversive dynamite and it is up to us to get it across the border between Italy and France. Its name: « Orapasta ». All this for pasta, you might say! Yes, but what a pasta. Pasta that has the good taste of having taste, the lost taste of ancestral cereals. Pasta that shows a great success, that doesn’t make you sick, but rather gives you peaches.

Step 1: Drop off the suitcase at the Orvieto train station bar luggage office. Even if we have to fill in some paperwork and hand in our identity papers, the attendant does not ask us what is in the suitcase. Phew, this is already a first step. We can get away for a short walk in the old town. We look like two real tourists with our skin pulled tight and our air rested, and no one can imagine that our suitcase contains anything other than swimming costumes and books. On the way back, no worries about getting the suitcase back, everything goes according to Giulia’s plan.

2nd stage: the train expected for one hour in the morning is now announced one hour late. We mustn’t fall asleep on the station platform because there is a great risk that our suitcase will be stolen. A few people pass on the platform. A group of young people get off a train from Roma. They rush into the arms of an old man who has been waiting for them for about twenty minutes. On a bench a little further on, a homeless man, distracted by his dog, tries to find sleep. On board a work locomotive, a group of men argue copiously, then everything becomes calm and silent again.

The moon rises behind the catenaries. Many trains pass by and keep us awake as they make so much wind and noise as they pass.

We are amazed at the number of cars being towed in one direction and then the other. What do you want Europe to do?

A few minutes before 2 o’clock, our train finally enters the station. We hurry to find car no. 2. The ticket inspector is waiting for us at the top of the step to help us get on board. It’s easy, he has our names on his tablet and we are the only two passengers to board at this time of the night. We hurry to find our compartment without talking so as not to attract his attention. Covid obliges us, it’s a good thing we are alone in our compartment.
3rd step: place the suitcase at the bottom of the compartment to make a bulwark, with our two bodies lying between it and the door, in case a burglar comes on board. Sudden awakening after a few hours: we have arrived at Milan Garibaldi. With our eyes barely open, we check through the window that this is the right station and that there is nothing suspicious on the platform. We get off as naturally as possible. A little further on in the station, police and military officers are busy checking the masks. Good for our pasta.

We have time to have breakfast outside the station. It’s a short and violent dive into the ultra-modern world. Luckily the pasta sleeps well at the bottom of the suitcase. Only a few old trams take us back to a time when cities were still on a human scale.

4th and last stage: it is the most risky stage of the race. It is now time to board the TGV  » Milano-Parigi « , the one that will take us across the border. The controls are intensifying. Our leaders may boast about the merits of the Greater Europe and the opening of the borders in the Schengen area, but we don’t see the negative effects. Checking papers, then checking tickets, then checking masks… luggage is no longer of any interest.

Shortly after Milan, the TGV splits the cultivated plain into rice fields. We can see that there is indeed a real rice industry in Italy. Old farms are abandoned in favour of industrial silos. It is said that many Italians have become intolerant to gluten by consuming wheat so modified for industrial use. They then turn to eating rice. This is really not the time to open the suitcase, as the risk of a riot is real in these countries.

Suddenly the train stops. Both of us see a lot of policemen all around the train and on the platform. Our hearts go wild. This time we are done for sure. Identity check, papers please. Still no interest in luggage. It’s obviously a matter of checking that no migrant crosses the border illegally. The toilets are rigorously checked and the papers of one of our black-skinned neighbours are intensively peeled. Yet another of the many vaunted merits of Greater Europe: it is now up to the countries that have an opening on the Mediterranean to manage alone the influx of climate refugees who approach their coasts after interminable journeys, on board boats so precarious that many of them sink en route.
At last we have the feeling that we have passed all the controls, but now the controllers are showing up again. This time it’s a temperature check, everything is fine.
It is now 4:17 pm, we arrive at Gare de Lyon in Paris, after a journey of more than 15 hours. The suitcase has passed all the controls on board the train and the famous « Orapasta » will be able to conquer Paris, delighting the hearts and taste buds of those for whom it is intended. We blend discreetly into the crowd of departures and arrivals.

On the way out, we make a small passage in front of Bercy (the no less famous Ministry of Finance and Recovery) just for fun. What if our two fairies were right and that this ancestral wheat pasta is the non-violent weapon that will straighten the world?

Par Nathalie

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)