Milan

Buon giorno! Viva Italia! Ok that’s laying it on a bit thick but after going from the canals of Venice to the Sound of Long Island, we found ourselves saying GRAH-zee and Buon giorno and sera much more out of wistful nostalgia than habit. Which, by the way, produces some strange looks from the Indian clerk at the C-store a few blocks away….

After a comfortable (a whole row to myself!) overnight flight…watching the size of the exposed moon change as the hours passed, and then the strikingly bright sunlight expose an amazing view of the Swiss Alps, I arrived in Milan at 9am and rode the train through the (not so attractive) suburbs to downtown Milan. Lance greeted me at the hotel, went on to meetings, and I feel asleep to the sounds of busy commerce-filled Milan. We met up later for a traditional Milanese dinner, with several courses of both wine and food! Simona, our Italian host, led us through each course – starting with a small glass of sweet local wine, followed by a first course translated as “One of the Earth” (vs. One of the Sea) including fried meat-stuffed olives, lightly fried and breaded vegetables, artichoke and fresh parmesan, prosciutto, cured sausage, on and on. After haggling a bit with the waiter, Simona explained the different regions in Italy have fairly specific traditions on the courses and wine pairings and she was negotiating with him to match our tastes and to provide an interesting variety, which didn’t necessarily follow the tradition (ie. Red AND white wine….huh?). I had prawns with Milanese rice, risotta flavored with saffron. Our bellies were quite full, but what did appear but a Lazy Susan of fruit, melted chocolate, cream, and cookies….deliciouso. Lance’s co-worker Steve convinced us all to try a little glass of limoncello, a lemon-flavored vodka that goes down smooth and bites you back with the last drop. This feast was even better considering that the night before when Lance and Steve arrived they were too late for dinner, so they had to beg for olives from a local bartender for their dinner.

It rained in every city on every continent Lance had visited but of course once I arrived, the next day the sun came out! The next day Lance had a breakfast meeting and an afternoon meeting but in between we traversed the streets of Milan from one end to the other. We spent the afternoon on the roof (literally!) of the Duomo, the second largest cathedral in Italy. The views and the architecture were amazing and the warm Italian sun was a great contrast to the cold and wet I left behind in New York. From there we traipsed through the ultra luxury shopping district of Milan – just window shopping though as we didn’t dare to enter too many shops. Even before the 30% price hike thanks to a weak dollar we were well out of our league. I saw a lot of beautiful clothes, but as Marco, a transplanted Italian-New Yorker told us, the Italians go to Woodbury (an outlet mall about an hour from Norwalk) to buy the same clothes at less than half the price! In fact, the only thing we bought on the whole trip was about $10 worth of chocolate treats…! For our next dinner, we walked from our hotel through a quiet, green city park to the Brera neighborhood, turning one corner off the big city streets into a maze of tiny alleys and narrow pedestrian and motorbike only streets filled with quant restaurants and bars. Many of the bars host a 5-9pm happy hour with buffets of local specialties of pasta, cured meats, and bruschetta. So, we sampled many bars and many treats, enjoying the warm(er) weather in the narrow patios that adjoin each eatery. Young people aplenty here and the urban experience we have been missing so much since our move to CT.

See pictures of the Duomo and more here: