Danilo.

 In this beautiful picture by @lucafava we see the "Broletto", a very special place for me in my hometown of #varese.

That window on the left was the window to
a world filled with adventure and dreams of big fish and distant waters.

Behind that glass Danilo, his wife Signora Paola and Danilo's father ran Curti Pesca Sport the only place in town that would cater to fly anglers.  The for t door opens on the piazza and I spent many hours, in the evening, peeping in the window listing after a Hardy Phantom or a Palakona....

A sliding glass doors display took the whole left wall of the hallway to the counter.

It was filled with any imaginable (back then) fly tying material and two brands stood out: Veniard and Metz. 

 Across from it, the rod rack. Mostly spinning and match and, at the end, a few Hardy glass and Farlow's cane fly rods.

The "vault", though, was an antique closet hid way in the back of the storage room;it contained an endless collection of Palakonas, Leonard, Pezon et Michel and old Spey rods.

Danilo's father, Mr Curti Sr., was one of those stuck up, up stream dry fly only kind of guys. He's always been old since I saw him the first time.

Atlantic salmon in Scotland, private waters in Yugoslavia and Austria... One of those tweed and Barbour guys before Barbour was fashionable, used to scoff at me and my friend when we were asking for larger and larger streamer hooks or longer and longer feathers and hair for our pike flies.

Yes, we were teens in the 80s and we were far ahead of everyone in town when it came to pushing the boundaries of flyfishing in our rivers, streams and lakes. 

Facebook wasn't even on Zuck's mind yet and all the info we could get was from some "smuggled" foreign magazine or catalogue.

@houseofhardy  @barbour