The serious business deal faces, polished shoes, heels, loosened evening ties, weekend fun just around the corner, fingers tracing routes on tourist maps, long fashion-week legs: postcards from Milan.

Even with my eyes shut, I can imagine it all, because I know what it sounds like. In my mind, I know how this city breathes: I have welcomed her inside these four walls for so long that she no longer hides any secrets from me. She talks and transforms and I listen; I talk and transform and she listens. We move to the same beat.

They say that in the past in Naples, anyone having a coffee at the bar who was particularly happy would pay for two coffees, not one, the second one being for the next client. Every now and then someone would put their head around the door and enquire as to whether there was a “coffee up for the taking”. A coffee offered to humanity, in other words.

Bubbles, at Schiphol airport: three hours before their flight leaves for Beijing, so they have plenty of time to enjoy life. Work comes later.

Over the years, Michele has learnt to love these moments. To deliberately find time, during days that are often fast paced. What he would never have imagined doing was learning to enjoy them in an airport, let alone one like this with its uninterrupted flow of people, an almost infinite list of potential destinations, a global hub for moving goods and people.

Best Airport in the Middle East at the World Airport Awards for 3 years running. Abu Dhabi international airport definitely knows how to seduce its passengers.