The town of Coglioniano is famous
both for its highest per capita income, and for the lowest Intelligence
Quotient of its population, joined to an endemic alcoholism: the
cocktail between these characteristics makes the town goal of
students and swindlers of every type and every origin.
The main (and often the only) worry of the inhabitants of Coglioniano
is to buy and show off high price clothes, with no attention at
all about its quality and aesthetic, but being only pushed by
the terror not to seem fashionable, therefore the Sunday walk
is a good chance for the tourist to laugh a little upon the natives.
What to see
The ancient medieval historical center has been for a long time
replaced by a thick crowd of asbestos cement sheds. In particular
the ancient thirteenth century cathedral has been submitted to
a restyling in order to lodge a Dolce & Gabbana show-room
and a Gucci outlet. The Giottesque school frescoes that decorated
it have been detached, sheltered in the sacristy premises and
repainted in white, to be used as a maxiscreen for live TV transmissions.
Festivities and
popular traditions
The traditional festivity of Coglioniano is the SUV parade in
the historical center, which is repeated in occasion of every
promotional campaign of the automotive companies. The spiritual
aspect of the festivity is guaranteed by a solemn mass, celebrated
from the 11,00 to 11,02 AM, just before the cocktail-party. Although
99.9% of the inhabitants declare to be catholic, the mass is followed
just by a 94 years old lady, paralyzed, which is taken out from
the parochial warehouse for the occasion.
The traditional annual election of the village fool was instead
cancelled since some years, due to the impossibility to choose
among the countless candidates, all equally worthy; the contest
took place in the Sport Hall
of the village, but the huge
number of participants of the last editions exceeded the capacity
of the building, making the continuation of the competition impossible.
Shopping
The historical center of Coglioniano is crowded by jeweller's
shops that, even selling just fake Rolex watches and trinkets,
have higher selling prices than Cartier in Montecarlo. The high
prices make the jewellers very nervous, so they react preventively
shooting with large-caliber guns at every gesture of the customer
they deem suspicious. For this reason a mortality of 74% between
their customers is recorded.
The numerous luxury shoe shops sell exclusively moccassins, since
the inhabitants of the town have troubles in lacing their shoes
up. Moreover it is not possible to buy crocodile shoes since a
Coglionianese trade expedition in Africa, in spite of an accurate
search, has been able to find only barefoot crocodiles.
In the town there are twelve semi-official Ferrari distributors,
that sell with a 5% discount models which are nearly equal to
the original ones, except for the cardboard bodywork and the pedal
propulsion, that forces the driver to imitate with the mouth the
roar of the motor, and to operate the special inner windscreen-wiper
in order to clean up the glass.
Gastronomy
The Coglioniano cooking counts few dishes, of low quality and
astronomical price. The most famous is the "sgrunf",
made with unripe turnips, straw and truffle boiled for 24 hours,
so that it loses any flavour.
In Coglioniano pigs are traditionally reared, accurately selected
for meat production and fed with oysters, lobsters and vintage
champagne, but they are only used for the production of organic
fertilizer and as draught animals.
In Coglioniano several restaurants can be found, all with menus
over 50 euros, although serving precooked foods heated up in a
microwaves oven. The opening hours are from 11.00 to 12.00 AM,
and then the cooks go back home. Beyond these hours it would be
possible to apply to the take-away food shops, if only they were
not closed from 11.30 to 17.30 AM.
Traffic
The Coglionianese people can just conceive to move by car and
they don't tolerate the existence of pedestrian areas. The rigid
traditional discipline of the place imposes however the pedestrians
to cross the road on the zebra crossing, therefore it is not rare
to see persons, usually old ones, mummified in waiting position
at the curb of the pedestrian crossing, inasmuch as however the
cars never stop.
Every Sunday the mayor, in order to imitate the initiatives of
the other cities, proclaims the traffic block in the historical
center. For a disagreeable misunderstanding on the meaning of
the term, the block consists in taking all the SUV in the town
center and keeping them all the day blocked there with the engine
running.
Oftentime the drivers, in order to overcome the boredom, engages
also collective roaring contests.
Hospitality
In Coglioniano several hotels can be found, all with prices over
90 Euros per night. Usually the staff wakes up the hosts at four
in the morning arguing that: "You are not at home".
In case you should stay for more than one night, you'd better
make your bed by yourself, because asking the hotelkeeper to perform
such an operation often triggers violent reactions.
How to get there
By car, coming from the Coglioniano turn-off of the A17 motorway,
it must run along the first fourteen traffic circles, never following
the indications for Coglioniano (when there is one), but those
for Europa car-repairer (first six traffic circles) and then for
Friendlyprices furniture factory (last eight traffic circles).
At the fifteenth traffic circle it must wait for the red and black
semitrailer of “La Celere” road haulages, following
it until it enter the company's warehouse, keeping going ahead,
until the first switched off traffic light, then waiting it turns
on and turns green, go left, reach to the next traffic circles,
enter there on the wrong side, turn at the closed road, and therefore
follow the bad smell of exhaust gases until entering Coglioniano.
Contacts
The Coglionianese tourist offices can be found in every chief
town of the Italian provinces and in every European capital, and
they are opened 24 hours a day.
To reserve a hotel or a travel to Coglioniano in these offices
is however difficult, inasmuch as its employees are usually scarsely
sociable and loquacious and they do not love that strangers visit
their town, and therefore they play insolent with the potential
customers with mockeries on their physical defects, or questioning
they could really afford a vacation in Coglioniano.
Moreover every customer is requested to pay in advance 10 Euros
for every information asked.
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page created: May 23rd 2008 and last updated: June 5th 2009