This is a closer shot of the wall that can be seen in the previous image.

There is something that I noticed to some extent while I was in Italia, but probably even more when I moved across the border into Switzerland. Yes, Switzerland made me notice something in Italy.

It's flags.

The Italian tricolour was less prevalent than I expected it to be. It flew from all government buildings (along with the Euro flag) of course but it was not a common sight elsewhere in homes or businesses. Of course, sightings of the Australian flag in Australia probably aren't much more common, but I would probably have expected the flag to be a more important "thing" for Italians given how the country was essentially torn apart for hundreds of years (frequently under foreign domination) and given how revered Vittorio Emanuele II (the first king of a unified Italy) is, with statues to him everywhere. (In this sense Italy (as a single, unified Italy) is both older and younger than Australia. Australia was settled in 1788, Italy was unified in 1861. However Australia did not become a single nation until 1901.)

Certainly there are people in tricoloured baseball hats with "Italia 1861" inscribed across the front of them. I declined to purchase one for the same reason that I declined to wear a neon sign over my head saying "LOOK, LOOK, TOURIST BELOW!!!"

It is true that the tricolour will often appear in one form or another as stickers on cars and scooters, but it's not quite the same thing.

However this is totally at odds with Switzerland where the Swiss Cross and the white on red colour scheme is almost everywhere you look. Indeed when we were riding north on the Bernina Express I knew that we had crossed into Switzerland for two reasons:
(a) I got an SMS from Vodafone saying, essentially, "You know how we told you that you could use this SIM in Switzerland? Yeah. We lied. See ya!"; and
(b) I saw a Swiss flag at the far end of a field that was occupied by a herd of grazing cattle. Yes, I kid you not, someone had a flagpole with a flag at the end of a cattle field.

But occasionally, almost as a reaction to the flaglessness of many buildings, you get the occasional glimpse of "I am Italian, and proud of it". Even the beagle is draped in the national colours.

There is perhaps a little bit of idealism here. I don't know how long ago this was painted but from the general style and weathering I'm betting early 90's to early 2000's. The mural depicts an Italy that still exists but, with less relationship resiliency and shifting demographics in part because of the migrant crisis, is perhaps less common than it once was.