Milan Trip: 9/17-9/19

Thursday after class — nearly right after class, the hour and half between class ending and our train departure went by way faster than we expected — we hopped on the FrecciaRossa to Milano. The FrecciaRossa is the fastest of TrenItalia’s fleet and is far nicer than the regional trains. I clocked us going 185mph on the way back. In total there were 4 of us — me and my friends Ross, Rachel and Annie (who I actually know from camp).

After navigating the wildly complex Milano Centrale station, we were on the M2 line of the Metro headed to our AirBnb, just 15 minutes outside of the city center. The apartment was about an 8 minute walk from the Udine stop and on the 5th floor of a pretty decent building. The inside of the apartment was far nicer than the outside of the building would suggest. It had AC — thank god — 2 good sized bedrooms, a nice bathroom, a nice kitchen, and a very comfortable living room. It did not however, have the dryer that we were promised; I had even brought a few pairs of jeans to wash and dry. We explored the neighborhood for a bit and found nothing exciting besides a huge (and cheap) grocery store just around the corner, called Coop. We’re not sure if it’s “co-op” or “coop” but there’s one in Florence and we love it, even though it’s about twice as far as the other main grocery store here, Conad. We found pancake mix (!!!), something we hadn’t been able to find in Florence, and stocked up some fresh berries for breakfast as well.

We headed back into the city for an 8:30pm reservation at Wang Jaio, a highly regarded local Chinese place with a few locations in and around Milan. The decor was unique but nice — I never expected cinderblocks to function so well as both pretty and a functional space divider. We knew we picked a good place by the sheer lack of tourists in the restaurant (and overall neighborhood.) The wait staff was all Chinese and we heard two languages when we walked in: Italian, and Chinese. The menu was entirely in Italian and we were a bit confused why everything was “spaghetti” or “tagliatelli” or various types of pasta. We quickly figured out that they are not actually different pasta dishes, but they are different noodle dishes, some with thin glass noodles (very delicious!) or others with thicker chow mein noodles. “Ravioli” was actually dumplings and I very much enjoyed our “Ravioli gamberi di vapore” which means “steamed shrimp dumplings.”

The rest of the dinner was very good, though Ross — who is Japanese, not Chinese — has very high Bay Area standards for Chinese food and wasn’t impressed. Either way, it was great considering we were in Italy and it was priced very well. At the end of the meal, we were brought two cut chunks of a yellow canary melon. It was so sweet and delicious; I’d never had one before and instantly was in love. There is currently one in our fridge that needs to ripen a bit more before I cut it. We asked for seconds, which seemed to appall the wait staff. They obliged, but charged us a whopping 6-Euros for two more slices.

After dinner we walked up a few blocks to grab some gelato and call an Uber to get us to the concert, which was outside the city center and next to the Linate airport. In Milan they only had Uber Black, so we received a very overly fancy Mercedes van. Unfortunately we took a bit too long with dinner and missed the first couple of songs at the concert, but the rest of the show was amazing. Leon Bridges is fantastic live, as well as very candid and humble in his banter with the crowd. Hearing people scream out for song requests with Italian accents was far funnier than one would imagine. The venue was outdoors and tiny — it was sold out too, with maybe 250-300 people there. We were able to sneak our way up to almost the very front.

When his set finished, we ran up and managed to get two setlists. After a few minutes, some of the band members came out and we talked to his incredible sax player for awhile. He told us to hang tight and that Leon would be out soon. A line started to form at the merch table and a crowd gathered as he walked out. We were able to talk to him for a solid few minutes — you could tell it was nice to be able to speak to fans that actually could understand English — and he signed our set lists and even came out from behind the merch table to take a picture with us.

The next morning, Annie got up early and left to go try to get us tickets to see The Last Supper, which we had seen online were both expensive and sold out. Neither seemed to be the case, as she was able to get us tickets for 5pm for only 6-Euros each. She went on her own and explored every possible area of the city. Rachel, Ross and I, on the other hand, had a delicious pancake breakfast and didn’t get to the city until noon. We walked around the Cathedral for a few minutes and headed over to the main shopping areas. How could we not spend a couple hours shopping in the fashion capitol of the world? I’m proud to say I bought only three pairs of pants — one maroon joggers (which are so comfortable I don’t think I’ll ever take them off), and two lightweight skinny pants, one gray and one khaki. After spending way too long at Bershka (the aforementioned shop), we went to a nice shoe store where Ross dropped 90-Euros on a nice pair of shoes before we had a quick lunch at Eataly.

Post lunch, we went to Porta Ticinese, where all three rivers in Milan meet. It was absolutely beautiful and it turns out Leonardo DaVinci designed the surrounding canals. Unfortunately we didn’t have a ton of time there as we head to get to the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see The Last Supper. It was a very strictly regulated process to get in: the whole group enters one area, the door seals, then we go into the next sealed room, etc. After three of these, we were let into the Refectory (dining hall — where all Last Supper paintings are) and had 15 minutes exactly to look at the painting. I was surprised at how good of a condition the painting was in. I was expecting something tiny and enclosed, like the Mona Lisa is in Paris. This was far from that. I’d estimate it was about 20’ x 10’ and it was absolutely beautiful. The vast renovations were fantastic and the painting was truly astonishing to see in person. If you’re in Milan, it’s an absolute must.

After The Last Supper, we walked over to the Sforzesco Castle to walk around for a bit and grab a coffee in the cafe. Next to the castle is a beautiful huge park, full of runners, people on slack lines, people walking dogs, biking, relaxing, etc etc. It was this gorgeous park that we all wished we had in the center of Florence. After that we headed over to Mercato Municipale to meet with some of Rachel’s friends that did an exchange program with her high school. This place was so far off the beaten path for tourists. Everyone there was local and spoke little English (which is what we want!) There were a million options, from grilled chicken to fried chicken to fish to pizza, all sorts of vendors everywhere with not nearly enough seating for a crowded 9pm Friday night crowd. We opted for the most popular option — fried calamari and shrimp. It was absolutely delicious. After a quick gelato, we took the Metro back, which seemed to take forever after we had walked a whopping 13 miles in the day.

Saturday morning we split up; Ross and Rachel went to an American bakery for bagels and shopping while Annie and I went to the Fondazione Prada, just outside the city. It was well worth it. The Prada Foundation turned old industrial warehouses into modern art galleries, complete with a massive golden structure that was being used as a “haunted house.” I put haunted house in quotes because it’s a straight up misnomer. Some of the art in there was eerie, but it was by no means a haunted house of any sorts.

Unfortunately we had not even two hours to explore the Fondazione, even though we could have spent a solid four hours there. We ended our time at the Bar Luce in the complex, designed by Wes Anderson, the filmmaker, as a place that he “would want to sit to write a movie.” It felt exactly like the lobby of The Grand Budapest Hotel. It was great. We sat and relaxed for a few and I had a fantastic coffee — a marocchino — which is an espresso shot with cocoa dust and frothy milk. It was delicious.

After a silly decision to grab some sushi nearby, we had to run back to the Metro station and take a painfully slow 10-minute ride back to Milano Centrale. We ran through the main station; I almost knocked over a small child at one point. With just under 10 minutes to spare, we met up with Ross and Rachel and boarded the train back.

The train back was quick and effortless. The 1 hr 40 min ride felt like not even an hour and quickly we were back in the nice and humid city of Florence. It’s a bummer that we don’t have such a nice rail system in America. The ride through Tuscany was mostly through tunnels unfortunately — the Bologna station (the only stop on the way to Milan) is all underground. Actually after a quick Google search, only the high speed trains go underground, everything else is upstairs and outside. But overall the trip was great. We didn’t spend too much on meals or shopping, and got to see a very unique city.

Milan however, did not feel like Italy. It was so modern and new. The architecture was largely French — it like we were in Paris, even though I’ve never even been to Paris. But the city was great and I would definitely go back, maybe even this semester.