by Attilio Polverini
Summer 1968, I was fourteen and with my dad, mom and little brother, we were preparing for a big trip.
Aboard the second-hand FIAT 850 that had just become part of the family, we were about to set off for Naples where the grandparents lived.
About 800 kilometers of highway, the"Highway of the Sun", inaugurated four years earlier after eight years of work, linked the north with the south of Italy, a grandiose work, a very long strip of asphalt, a traffic island without guardrails and the first rest areas, the first Autogrills.
Departure!
After a few kilometers of walking here is the glarge MELEGNANO sign, the toll booth where the toll was paid.
For years and years the name Melegnano has always evoked in me the “toll booth” starting line for journeys to the south and finishing line for return journeys to the north.
Even today (14 September 2025), fifty-seven years later, my destination is Melegnano.
Like then I travel at the speed of 90 km/h with my little 500.
Today there is a "new jersey" barrier dividing the lanes and the cars surrounding me are much bigger, but my destination today is not the toll booth: it is Melegnano itself where I will meet up with many other friends in 500s for the rally organised by Coordination of Milan City.
And indeed, here are the first 500s appearing along the road, instinctively we get in line, someone looks at us from the top of an SUV and waves and we, proudly, leave the highway to reach the village.
Yes, Melegnano is not just a "toll booth", but a cheerful and lively town with a square animated by the Sunday market, the Church and Castle.
And right in the courtyard of the Castle we are welcomed, our neatly lined up cars are admired and we lose ourselves in greetings, telling stories of the holidays we have just spent while drinking a coffee.
The Castle looms large: how can you not visit it?
We enter accompanied by the guide who begins to tell not only about the Castle, but also about Story, of the history of these places, of the family who reigned there, the Medici, of battles, sieges, soldiers, horses and armour with the walls of the Castle on one side and the Lambro river on the other.
In the meantime we admire the rooms, the frescoes on the walls, the immense fireplaces which at the time were the only source of heat for the large rooms, the prison cells, the ice house for the supplies... we imagine cold and foggy days, men working in the fields, the time marked by the bells and the carts pulled by oxen along the roads in the Great Plain.
And it is precisely along those streets, after the visit to the Castle, that the tour winds its way our roaring procession, between irrigation ditches and ditches, cornfields and freshly plowed land. A farmer working his tractor stops curiously, children wave cheerfully at the windows of modern villas, and improvised cameramen capture this long line of small racing cars, an unusual sight for those places.
And after this long walk here we are at the restaurant where the our party.
The room is modern, bright, with a large horseshoe-shaped table ready to welcome the crews.
And the chatter between courses continued, along with adventures, plans, and the joy of the new arrivals to the group: a young family with a delightful little girl who immediately seemed at ease among so many older ladies and gentlemen.
Then, after eating, we stay outside to enjoy the fresh countryside air: “So when is the next rally?”, “In October? Let me know the exact date!”, “I’ll definitely be there…..”, “I don’t know right now, but I’ll do everything I can to be there….”
And still wins desire to be together, to meet, to chat, thanks to the passion for our "cinquini" which, despite the cynics who judge them to be "noisy, smoking old cans", are a splendid excuse to spend time together.
