When it rains, go in drains! When it rains, don’t go in drains! I’ve heard it both ways, and sure each has merit but it depends where you are. Draining mostly in london I’ve become complacent that 90% of the time the water level is going to stay the same. The other 10% however is when the tunnel floods and your left with very wet nipples and a bad taste in your mouth. Having said a teary eyed farewell to Italy and Brescia we ventured north to Vienna, Austria. Our target, yea you guessed it, The Third Man.
The first project of a modern sewer system for Milan was proposed to the City Council in 1868 by engineer Felice Poggi and those at Cesa Bianchi and Bignam. However this project would only cover Milan’s older ”downtown” district and excluded the outskirts past the canals and city wall. Construction was slow and arduous, taking almost ten years to build around 3700m of pipeline. The City Council pressured Poggi over the slow rate of development who stated that it would take years before a city wide network would be possible.
Oh Italy, to say i have fond memories of her would be a lie. When i last visited her shores the trip met with a very abrupt end involving metro security guards shouting lots of loud angry gibberish while brandishing guns, more police then you can count on your fingers and a night in the superintendents office down at the HQ watching crack dealers and hookers getting processed. On the plus side it did include a rather entertaining ride in a 3.2 litre squad car going sideways round wet corners and all for the reasonable price of 30 euros, bargain!
If you considered Brescia a bit of a one trick pony, then you’d be mistaken. This quaint town has everything your average macro shooting photo nerd could want. Peeling paint, lonely chairs, broken windows, rotting floorboards, the full shebang! But for those of us who didn’t just get moist at the mention of the above here’s a few pictures from Brescia’s “High Life”.
So our target for the afternoon was Middleton Mine, the only underground Limestone mine in the UK. Middleton is split over three levels and stretches for more than 22 miles under the hills. The mine closed in 2001 and it has been estimated that during its operational time roughly 16 million tonnes of limestone had been removed.
Champ de Mars, another of the phantom metro stations littering the network. Opened in 1913 the station shared a similar life as Saint Martin, short. Eventually due to the war and a lack of use the station closed its gates for the last time on September 2, 1939.
