It is probably no one who has missed that we love Italy and after an unusually long break we now had the opportunity to return, this time to beautiful Milan. I honestly didn't have such high expectations as I thought that Milan is mostly a modern industrial city, but how wrong I was. Milan is a very cozy and beautiful city, big enough for a long weekend.
We arrived at Malpensa Airport, which is a bit outside the city but still accessible as the Malpensa express train only takes 35 minutes to one of the major stations Milano Centrale or Milano Cadorna. A short walk from the latter we found our nice Hotel Lancaster. Milan has loads of good hotels but the price level is high, so be prepared to cough up a good penny. Lancaster is in the middle range and is really only three stars but was clean, tidy and with good service. The location, right near the large park Parco Sempione and a bit away from the main tourist routes suited us perfectly.
Of course, we didn't go hungry in Milan, you can read about our food experiences in the this post. Here I focus on what there is to see and do. Sightseeing, pure and simple.
We started our tour in the park and its mafia entrance Arco della Pace, once upon a time started by guess-who? Well, of course Napoleon, but when the conquest plans didn't go as planned, construction was put on hold for a while and was completed in 1838 to celebrate the unification of Italy. The park is the city's lung and here Milanese exercise, relax and socialize at all hours of the day. The park also houses a number of museums and has an amphitheater where concerts are held from time to time. After walking through the park you will arrive at the medieval castle Castello Sforzesco which, apart from being interesting in itself, also contains a number of museums, including one for musical instruments.
Those who are tired of greenery, castles and museums can now look forward to the large shopping street Via Dante. There is all kinds of shopping here for us mere mortals and the street then leads to one of Milan's biggest attractions, the Vittorio Emanuele II shopping mall. It's hardly the most affordable part of town, but it's an incredibly impressive building and is said to be the world's oldest shopping mall built between 1865 and 1877. If you're in Milan on a shopping trip, you also won't miss Corso Buenos Aires, the street with the most clothing stores in the whole Europe.
After a visit to this shopping temple, one can conveniently walk on to the next divine building, perhaps to seek the forgiveness of shopping sins. Just outside the mall, the huge Duomo di Milano boasts its white marble. Regardless of what you think of cathedrals, this one is really worth a visit. The dome is the second largest in the world, only the Cathedral of Seville is larger. As Milan's biggest attraction, there is of course always a queue to get in, so we chose to take a guided tour of the cathedral where we also got ahead of the queues, which was quite convenient.
The cathedral is absolutely huge and also took an enormous amount of time to build, construction took place between the 14th century and the 19th century but is said to still be ongoing. Possibly this has to do with the beautiful but oh-so-porous marble that was used in the construction and which is constantly in need of repair. The marble comes from the area around Lake Como and in order to be transported, the canals that today make up the Navigli area, one of the most popular restaurant and bar areas in Milan, were built.
The cathedral is of course filled with statues and the most interesting has to be the one of the Apostle Bartholomew who was flayed alive. When you first look at the statue, you react that he has one leg too many, but when you look closer, you see that the apostle is draped in his own skin and his head hangs loosely along the back. A really scary statue!
Some may think you can't visit Milan without visiting San Siro but I'm more of the opinion that you can't visit Milan without visiting La Scala. Unfortunately there were no performances this weekend but we took a guided tour of the theater and its museum. La Scala's salon is best described as grandiose, here they have not skimped on either gold or red velvet and you feel almost royal when you enter one of the beautiful boxes. Speaking of grandiose, by the way, the guide told us that the stage is so big that the Leaning Tower of Pisa could fit standing at the bottom of the stage's basement. The tower would extend all the way up to the ceiling of the stage where the lighting and backdrops are located. See the picture of the model of the theater in cross-section in the gallery below and you'll see what I mean.
The only thing I missed was that you weren't allowed to go backstage and see the rehearsal rooms and workshops, but it's not possible to have tourists trailing behind the scenes all day, after all, it's the artists' workplace.
The theater also includes a small museum where you can see everything from historical instruments and costumes used in the past as well as paintings of celebrities of the time. I don't really know how many sculptures, statues and paintings by Verdi we got to see, but it was a bunch. Even Verdi's death mask was in a display case. For the truly Verdi-bitten, I can take the opportunity to suggest the Grand Hotel et de Milan a couple of hundred meters from the theater. Here you can stay in the Verdi suite, i.e. the suite where Verdi was found dead in 1901.
Tired of old stuff, we went for a walk a bit off the tourist trail and found the area City Life which is about halfway to San Siro. Built for Expo 2015, City Life includes a modern mall, a number of skyscrapers and green spaces. Around City Life are also modern residential areas with stylish and innovative buildings. We spent an hour or so here and it was fun as a change from the more central parts of Milan. Speaking of innovative buildings, it is also recommended to take a trip to the Vertical Forrest, skyscrapers covered with around 900 trees.
Milan really exceeded our expectations as a weekend city. It's a really nice city and big enough to see most of it in a couple of days. There is a lot to see and do, while there are also plenty of parks and green areas where you can just hang out and eat ice cream. Most everything is within easy walking distance so it's also very easy to get around. We can really recommend a trip to this beautiful city.
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