Four stops before the checkout

Cremona, Italy

Stop one

Torrazzo di Cremona

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet): Come out at two in the morning and this tower is the only thing awake with me. One of the tallest brick bell towers in Europe, and that astronomical clock on the front, made in the 1580s by a father and son of the Divizioli family, keeps turning through the empty hours whether or not a single person in Cremona is looking at it. Nobody is. I am. The bells mark every hour across a square with nothing in it, and the sound comes back off the cathedral about a second later, which you will never hear in daylight because daylight is full of scooters. And the reason it stands this high? Centuries of rivalry with the neighbouring cities over who had the taller, finer thing. Whole towns, lying awake about height. I know the feeling.

Stop two

Piazza del Comune and the Palazzo Comunale violin collection

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet): Now this is the room I think about on the long shifts. Inside the Palazzo Comunale, across the square from the cathedral, there is a small climate-controlled room holding violins by Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari. At night the humidity is held steady and nothing in there makes a sound, which for a violin is not rest, it is decline. So the city runs a rotation of musicians who come and play them regularly, so the wood does not seize up. Think about that job description. This town employs people to keep instruments awake. I do the same for a building. The lights over that case never go off, and I have never once walked past it without slowing down.

Stop three

Piazza Roma, Stradivari memorial

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet): Piazza Roma, half past three, and this is the stop that keeps me quiet for the rest of the round. Antonio Stradivari died in 1737 and was buried in the church of San Domenico, which stood on this ground. In the nineteenth century the city pulled that church down, and in the demolition his remains were lost. Lost. The most valuable name in the history of music, mislaid in the making of a small park. There is a memorial slab, and at night the lamps catch it at a low angle so the lettering reads better in the dark than it ever does at noon. Nobody comes to it after hours. So I stand there a minute. Somebody on the payroll ought to.

Stop four

Cremona Cathedral

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet): Last door of the round, and the cathedral is a different building when it is empty. Begun in 1107, badly damaged by an earthquake in 1117, and then worked on for centuries, so the Romanesque sits underneath and later fashions are layered over the top of it by generations who thought their grandparents had no taste. You cannot see the argument in daylight. You can see it by torch, one arch at a time. Inside, sixteenth-century painters covered the nave with frescoes, several of them competing directly with one another in the same room, and by torchlight you only ever light one rival at a time, which is probably how they would have wanted it. The marble facade cools and ticks after sundown. Empty, this place sounds enormous.

The Cremona, Italy track

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet)

Written for this world alone.

Lean in. I have carried other people's belongings for 22 years and the job teaches exactly one thing: everybody owns far more than they use, everybody knows it, and nobody says it out loud. I say it out loud. It is why I get fewer Christmas cards. In Cremona I would get none at all.

So. The Wilson Adult 2-racquet bag. Two frames, a slim profile, one main compartment, one accessory pocket, an adjustable shoulder strap and carry handles. That is the entire specification and it is the correct one for most people, because most people own 2 racquets and carry 1.

A 2-pack sleeve is light, it does not swing into doorframes, it drops into a car footwell, and it protects the frames from the damage that actually occurs — knocks in transit, grips getting scuffed — rather than the tournament-week damage nobody reading this is going to suffer. The accessory pocket takes a tube of balls, an overgrip and your keys.

If you have been hauling a 15-racquet bag to a Tuesday-night doubles match, this is the honest downgrade nobody wants to admit they need. It will go everywhere from a lesson on a wet Wednesday in Cremona to a club final, and it will not once make you look like you are moving house.

Cremona will back me up on the subject of things going missing. Antonio Stradivari, the greatest violin maker who ever lived, died in 1737 and was buried in the church of San Domenico — and then, in the 1800s, the city pulled the church down. Demolished it. His remains were lost in the process.

The most valuable name in the history of music, mislaid while laying out a park, and what stands now is a memorial slab, which is a bit like leaving a note.

By the way, it is also perfect for a town that does look after the things it decides to keep: inside the Palazzo Comunale sit violins by Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari, and they must be played, regularly, by a rotation of musicians, so the wood does not seize up. Imagine the politics of that waiting list. Now don't repeat that.

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Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet)

Wilson Adult Tennis Bag (2 Racquet)