I was away for a while, then I came back.
Now I might have gone again. It's all about the words Y...
I was away for a while, then I came back.
Now I might have gone again. It's all about the words Y'see?
Member since:08.01.2002
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It's official. I'm getting old.
I can't do anything about it either. I tried like amending my y'know vocabulary. Innit, and I bought jeans that clearly required the support of a belt but then, this is how crazy I am, I didn't wear a belt. Everyone could see my pants.
I quickly realised that my Tim Westwood impression was best kept only to be seen at a specifically themed fancy dress party, turned up the volume on 'The Today Program' on Radio Four because the pips were playing and that means there'll be news, and accepted my daily trundle towards my thirtieth birthday with only the fact that the FTSE had regained a few points to cheer me up.
Something else that cheered me, and don't hate me for this, was the knowledge that the upcoming weekend would be my fiancée's very own 30th, cheery because her birthday is a full 4 weeks before mine. She was turning the corner of life off of Twenty highway onto Thirty lane. Lower speed limits and Radio 2 bound. How potentially depressing.
To celebrate this landmark birthday moment before embarking on 4 weeks of gentle gloating, I booked a surprise weekend away in Milan. Generally, I'm useless at surprises because I'm useless at the 'give me a clue' game. 'Go on....Give me a Clue!' 'erm.....she's works as the queen of England' 'is it The Queen?' 'damn'
This time round I did ever so well, concealing our destination to the point of even joining a long queue to check in for a flight to Barcelona before quickly skipping over to the much shorter Milan line. I hadn't organised that end bit, but I did take the credit when the combined excitement of a reduced waiting time with a weekend in Italy caused one of us to woop and do a funny little jig. I had organised the weekend though. Flights to Milan are available from all over the U.K. and Milan itself has three main airports to choose from. Milan Malpensa and Milan
Linate are the closest, most convenient airports with rail connections to Milan's Central Station.
However, most UK visitors to Milan forfeit the ease of the transfer for an ease on their wallet and opt for the third way. The Ryanair served Milan Orio al Serio way.
The airport is also known as Bergamo and the airport code remains as BGY, because it's in Bergamo, 40 miles outside Milan. Not Milan then. We were flying from London Luton Airport, which is in Bedfordshire, a full 3 counties away from London, but only 11 miles from our home, so handy for us at least. The way to get from Bergamo into actual Milan is to go by 45 minute coach journey and with coaches leaving every 30 minutes on average and the two main coach companies charging the same Euro16 return per person, the temptations to give in to the ridiculous prices of a Ryanair flight were too great, and so we found ourselves getting off the coach outside the Centrale Station and into a Taxi for the final leg to our hotel.
We stayed at The Watt Tredici. Those of you who speak Italian will know that Tredici translates as "thirteen", and with the Hotel being on Watt street, there's no need to remember an address, as the hotel name IS the address. Genius. Although if the idea catches on, it could get complicated.
The hotel itself had the Art Gallery 'less is more' approach to décor that is associated with modern, white everything, and individual pieces of brightly coloured furniture carefully placed here and there. The hotel reception and adjoining open plan restaurant area felt a little bit like the designers had gone into an Ikea, gone up to one of their 'ideal life' displays and said "I'll take it. All of it." We were pleased though as the rooms were spacious and comfortable with a balcony that came with a sliding wooden shutter. I was relieved too, as I'd had full responsibility of hotel choice resting heavily on my chest whilst the taxi drove out of the centre of Milan and headed south for 20 minutes and Euro25 before stopping in an area that was decorated with random and individual attempts at graffiti by artists with varying degrees of talent and humility. If you were to judge the area on the amount of graffiti displayed, you would think we'd stumbled upon the Milan Bronx. We hadn't. The Italians just seem to like to spray paint everywhere. We were in the "Fashion District", and near the Naviglio Grande canal which is lined with a huge choice of pasta and pizzarestaurants, artists studios, galleries, and absolutely fascinating bric a brac antique shops that stocked everything from old 1940 lyric sheets to 1930's kids toys to 60's furniture, all just left lying around, and mostly covered in dust, with not a single shopkeeper to be seen working in any of them. Part of me wonders if we'd accidentally wandered into someone's front room.
Every Sunday, this area along the Canal is taken over by a local market, with fresh parmesan cheeses, amoretti biscuits, flowers and artwork on offer. As well as fake handbags and one stall that was selling Jesus through passion and pamphlets.
On the Saturday we'd spent the day exploring the centre of Milan itself, making good use of the very reasonable Euro3 all day tram and Metro ticket. The number 2 tram runs straight from the Fashion District to the tourist mecca of the Duomo.
The Duomo dominates the main square of Milan, and it can boast as being the third largest church in Christendom. I don't know if the top 10 list counts the stadiums the Mormons call churches in Salt Lake City but it was enormous, spectacular, and well worth a wander around inside. With knowledge I possibly learned on Radio 4, I know that this vast construction was begun originally in the 14th century, by the archbishop of Milan, and it is built on the site of a roman basilica. Every 200 years or so, another bishop had a go at improving its size and appearance, and each time the gothic exterior has had details like statues on the tops of every one of the dozens of spires, and all done with the knowledge that no-one would be able to see the statues faces, being perched at they are 150 metres up. Even Napaolean Bonaparte had a bash, in 1805 and right up to the 1980's additions were being made. I wanted to have a go at adding a bit, but my offer was declined. Despite the signs asking you not to and the guards in camouflage wearing guns, everyone took at least one photo. I took one of the floor by accident. Honest. It's so good inside that you risk death to record it.
Surrounding the Duomo is a shopping area known as the "Square Mile" that includes Gucci, Prada, Luis Vuitton, and more brands that were all very shiny and completely unaffordable, although the further down the streets you explore, the more affordable the shops became. We found the Via Torino was the Milan's version of Oxford Street. The more posh your carrier bags were, the closer you were to God, in spatial terms at least. Resting over a Euro1 cup of Mcdonalds coffee - sitting proudly opposite a Prada shop, we joined in the Milanese sport of people watching and recovered from the mornings exploits. I did feel slightly fraudulent in going into a Mcdonalds whilst away, but as I can't speak Italian, I did find myself speaking rudimentary Spanish with an Italian accent on occasions when ordering coffee, as asking for a "coffee" had resulted in a different interpretation from the baristas on three previous attempts. An espresso sized cup with a pipette of milk, An espresso with a pint of frothy milk An espresso and an Americano and a pint of frothy milk.
To burn off some of the caffeine streaking through our veins, we decided we'd explore the streets that roll out from around the Duomo in concentric circles and stumbled on the Castello sforzesko, a large fortified structure that marks the entrance to the Parco Sempione, Milan's answer to Hyde Park, although actually probably more the size of Green Park.
The park looked as though it would have been a nice place to wander around, had the sky not suddenly gone an angry shade of grey, and in came the rain. Luckily for us, the street traders who had been peddling fake handbags when it was sunny 15 minutes earlier, had magically and instantly adapted to the change of climate and were now doing a roaring trade in Euro3 umbrellas. We bought one, and it started off fairly broken before quickly advancing through mostly broken and settling on completely knackered. It did a sufficient enough job to get us to the Cairoli Metro Station in a dry state, and we headed along the Red line (Milans metro only has three lines - Red, Yellow and Green) for one stop to the Cadorna Station, so we could check out the famous Last Supper painting by Leonardo di Caprio, obviously done before he got famous.
'The Last Supper' is possibly one of the worlds most famous and controversial works of art, and any visit to Milan wouldn't be complete without seeing it. It is therefore unfortunate that our visit to Milan technically wasn't complete, as no-one mentioned to us that in order to see the Last Supper, you have to telephone and book before you turn up. You can't assume that as it is an extraordinarily popular attraction that they would have an open door policy like those seen at British Museums. They don't. You have to book, or argue with another man with a gun camouflage, We did see the outside of the building that housed the painting, and we had the same sort of feeling you get when you see the back of a famous persons head. It's great to be in the right place, but it is sorely disappointing not to look at their faces.
Overall, Milan has a great deal to offer the weekend visitor, and there's enough to see and do to keep all types of traveller happy. There's culture, there are shops and there's weird people to look at.
For Flights: www.ryanair.com For Hotels: www.lastminute.com For Coach Transfers: www.terravision.eu
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Apr 24th, 2009
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