Milan August 2014
[from FB post: August 5, ,2014]
I just spent all morning trying to change UK Pounds to Euros. No banks offer money exchange and money changers take 40% to do it (yes you read right). I walked down to the Duomo to look there and it is just amazing what Milan is like once you cross into the "Old City" Cleaner, brighter... everything is better. It's like they don't care about anything outside of that area... oh and when you go into any bank there are double secure doors to pass through (which makes me think crime must be a huge problem). My impression is that Milan today is like New York in the 1980s before the big clean up. Anyway, let's say so far it's NOT growing on me...
Emirates flew from Dubai to New York via Milan so it became my preferred European stopover during the summers I worked in Saudi Arabia. My first visit was tacked onto a trip to Madrid and London. Except for a visit to Venice years before to see an NYU colleague, it was my first trip to Italy. Milan, what a place to start - what a mistake! Even in the age of lots of online information I didn't do enough research to prepare myself for Italy's industrial and financial capital. I heard stories of how bad Rome and Naples could be, but people never said much about Milan. After exiting the gloriously downtrodden train station [see: Milano Centrale] and walking through a sketchy neighborhood to my hotel, I knew something was up with the city.
I got settled in the room and oriented with Milan on my laptop and then walked out to the Piazza della Republica, the end of a long boulevard that stretched from Milano Centrale to the ring road that encircled central Milan. I assumed the ring road represented the old walls of Milan because after crossing it, everything changed. Down and dirty Milan was suddenly the Milan of fashion houses dripping in wealth. The closer I pressed toward the Piazza del Duomo, the better things got. Milan was definitely two cities - old Milan inside the former city walls and the rest. Of course, a few nice places existed outside of the ring road, but largely the best bits of Milan were all concentrated in that historic center. Milan, and in a way all of Italy, was suddenly redeemed.
At the end of my first day in Milan of ups and downs, I needed some wine and snacks. Just outside the old city on the ring road, next to a narrow strip of park where, what were once walls now held tram tracks, I found The Winery 2 Aaron Brussolo. The place proudly served wine from their own vineyard and I added a nice charcuterie plate to my refreshment. I sat out on the sidewalk and watched the trams zoom by under the trees while enjoying my first aperitivo. Italy was getting better and better - maybe I had judged everything too harshly? Over the next few days I walked the old city and was impressed with Milan's history (and its wealth). Italy had passed the litmus test - on that vacation I approved of both Spain and Italy. Little did I know that in the coming years I would return to both countries repeatedly and learn to love them both, albeit in different ways.
Thank you beautiful and scary Milano Centrale, thank you "Milano intramura", and thank you aperitivo. Because of all of you, I returned to Italy again and again.
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