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Chiari, a small town in the province of Brescia, was chosen completely at random: I simply wanted to see somewhere new not too far away. I can’t say I regret visiting it — I’ve seen worse in my life.
The centre of Chiari is small but interesting.

In some areas it feels a bit run-down.

In other areas, on the contrary, it has been renovated to the point of looking almost too perfect.

But there is still plenty of work for archaeologists.

The most common street lamps in the historic centre are not ugly, but they are all incredibly dirty.

According to tradition, each façade of the Civic Tower should have a different background colour for the clock face (yellow, blue, green or red), but as far as I can tell it is always white (or am I mistaken?).

A tower 30 metres high is all that remains of the Visconti Fortress.

Anyone who does not wish to limit themselves to the traditional tour of the city’s main churches could visit Villa Mazzotti: both the building and the surrounding park are designed in one of my favourite styles.

From the park, however, I will show you only one detail: the super chicken coop.

But let us return to the city to look at its most important details. Almost all street signs are fixed inside gilded frames.

In the windows of many buildings in the centre I noticed Christmas decorations that are always of the same kind: white bears under a lamp, or a white pine tree.

Some shop windows are also decorated in a stylistically similar way. I do not know what explanation to give for such uniformity: a lack of imagination, a municipal regulation, or a shortage of decorations on the market?

Let us then try to see whether the local dead are accommodated in a slightly nicer environment. At first glance, the cemetery looks promising.

But of course it is already closed. Whoever altered the old opening-hours sign in this way is a vandal who deserves to be buried alive.

I did not know that even the dead needed money…

A few metres from the entrance I noticed an accumulation of suspicious waste… I do not know whether one day I will have the opportunity to collect heavy objects to take away.

The landscape that the dead see during their nocturnal walks is soothing.

All right, let us leave the deceased in peace and return to the living in the city. Chiari is crossed by numerous watercourses, the widest of which are equipped with structures of unknown purpose. What are they for? To haul boats out?

The water in the aforementioned watercourses is relatively clean. The only exception is, of course, the ancient defensive moat surrounding the historic centre.

In the outskirts, on the other hand, I saw many sluice gates (do they have a specific name?), even though some are already out of use, which regulate the amount of water in streams that are now underground. Until now, I had encountered such objects only in agricultural areas.

This is an interesting idea: for once, pebbles are used in a sensible way. They allow the watering of trees, prevent the spread of dust, and people are not forced to walk on them.

Chiari’s bike-sharing system is the same as the ones in Lodi and Finale Ligure.

At last, an original pictogram!

The litter bins are identical to those in Como.

Chiari is the Lombard town with the most extensive use of fractional street numbers.

The railway station, which brings our tour of Chiari to an end, has a canopy above the benches that looks like a bench itself. The sign you can see on its nearest side reads: «No stopping for pedestrians.» Lovely.