El Nost Milan (Il Nostro Milano in Milanese dialect)
The last week of our European trip was planned for Milano. My son drove us down from Chur to stay at his apartment. The weather was good and the drive was very pleasant. Much has changed driving from Switzerland to Milano since we lived there many years ago. There are new highways, tolls, speed limits. Sometimes progress stinks. After we unpacked in the morning, we went to the IPER supermarket for food, a short walk from the apartment. Everytime I go to that IPER, I am overwhelmed with its enormity and the food choices raw and cooked. I have never seen a supermarket like it. Moreover, it is only one store in a great outdoor mall.
Photo: The Arco della Pace
After shopping, we decided to go to the Triennale, a museum of art and technology in the Parco Sempione. We always go everytime we return to Milano to see if anything is new. We took the #1 tram to the Arco della Pace at the bottom of Corso Sempione and walked into the park from there.
The Triennale as usual was amazing. Seeing bikes and furniture from years ago never gets old (ha)! It was weird to see the originals of some of the plastic furniture we had in our house years ago being displayed as art. After we had our muesum fill, we walked to our old apartment house on Via Monti for memory’s sake, and took the tram to Via Dante (where no traffic is allowed) for lunch and to watch the passing crowd.
Photo: The Triennale
Photo: MIlano fashion crowd.
What we didn’t know was that particular week was Fashion Week in Milano and the downtown crowd was enormous. Public transportation was all discombobulated and my Milano phone app was continually producing notices of re-routes and closures. Annie made reservations online for dinner at Ristorante Mammina, a place known for its delicious pizza.
When we got there at 7, we found a sign on the door which said they were closed, “taking a pause,” in their words. They obviously forgot to mention it on their website. So we walked up Corso Sempione looking for and eventually found a restaurant that interested us.
The next day, Annie had a hair appointment nearaby where they specialize in curly hair. When she got finished, she saw a new manicurist across the street and went in. They were Chinese and she claims to have gotten the greatest manicure ever. They had only been there for 3 weeks and didn’t speak either Italian or English. Her conversation with them was talking through a translation app on their phone. She didn’t have any cash and there was no bank ATM nearby. They hadn’t arranged to take plastic yet, so Annie promised to pay them the next day which they agreed to.
Milano is a town that is rich with things to see and buy. We don’t understand how people visit Milano and leave after a day or two. We always have difficulty leaving and we lived there once. One can not only see the Duomo but can go to the top of it, which is an experience. The Duomo is, by law, the tallest structure in the city.
Opera, concert or ballet is classic at La Scala. You can see the last supper of DaVinci at the church Santa Maria delle Grazie but you have to reserve in advance. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele is opposite the Duomo and shouldn’t be missed. Although, this particular week, it was a madhouse because of the fashion crowd. You can even go to Starbucks! (true but ridiculous).
One day, we decided to visit the Naviglio area. The Navigli are a man-made series of canals which was created for shipping. Along the Grand Canal (Naviglio Grande) there are restaurants, stores and antique shops. So it’s always interesting. That day, it turned out to be a nightmare. We didn’t see the notice that the tram that goes there was blocked and without being aware of it, after a half hour on the tram, we wound up back where we started. Not to be thwarted, we took the Metro.
Photo: The Naviglio at night.
We were disappointed. It was still full of restaurants, antique stores and sights to see. But for us, it once had an aura which we felt was gone and became too touristy for our taste. There were hawks outside each restaurant hustling passing tourists to come in to the restaurants. We had planned to have lunch there but the atmosphere so disturbed us that we left.
It was a must, to eat at Ristorante da Stefano right off Via Plana, where we were staying. It is one of the best restaurants in Milano and the food never disappoints. I had linguini with vongole (clams) and Annie had a tagliatelli dish that she said was the best she ever tasted.
We hung out a lot, mostly at sidewalk cafes trying to meet people and refresh our Italian fluency. Our last full day was a shopping day. We took the #1 tram again one stop past La Scala to Via Montenapoleone, the hub of Milano fashion. We found that the shops that used to have snotty sales personnel like Gucci, Armani, Prada and Ferragamo had changed. We were treated as cordially as could be. The prices were still out of sight but we found lesser known shops with incredible products at reasonable prices. So we got our gift shopping out of the way. When we returned to the apartment, we immediately went to the IPER market for our final Cappuccini with pastry.
The next morning, our taxi ride to Malpensa Airport was right on time. I will not describe our airport experience, lest I discourage you from a Milano visit. The plane arrived at Newark on time and our galavanting was over – back to American politics which we did not miss for one second.