Milan part 2

Part 2... make yourself a cup of coffee.

While travelling to and from the hotel, we always passed a big fancy-looking building that we eventually had to check out. The place happened to be a huge cemetery, the Cimitero Monumentale. This is where many notable and wealthy Milanese are buried. The main building was the gallery, where in some places an entire room was devoted to one memorial/tomb and in other places the walls were covered with tombs and plaques and memorials right up to the ceiling.



We took a walk on the grounds beyond the building, which was 60 acres of very fancy artwork indeed. Elaborate sculptures all over the place, and mausoleums as big as houses. Not sure if it's a Roman Catholic thing or just an Italian thing, but they sure put serious money into graves! The row-house mausoleums even have addresses and sit beside roads, making it look almost, but not quite, like a regular community. There were some plain burial plots but not too many; I imagine there are other cemeteries a little less lavish for those who can't afford to 'live' here.



A strange place to be a tourist? Not at all; there were several busloads of people there at the same time we visited, and walking tours were being given. I did, however, seem to be the only one taking pictures...

Elsewhere in the city we stumbled across a skeleton. It was covered with a tarp so we didn't get to see the whole thing. My, what big feet it has...



So apparently it's the work of the late Italian sculptor Gino De Dominicis. (I just stole this pic off the Internet.) If you look closely, you might just join me in concluding that this skeleton is the late Pinocchio.



The next day or so, we had an aerial view of said skeleton when we climbed to the roof of the church right beside it. Which brings us to Il Duomo di Milano.



The Duomo is the major cathedral in the city. The second largest Gothic cathedral in the world, it is faced completely with marble and is amazingly detailed. It holds 40,000 people.



Inside are the usual boatloads of 'books for the laity' and we didn't spend much time inside. Instead we chose to go to the roof, which is accessible by elevator or stairs. Stairs were cheaper so that decision was easy.




The Duomo faces the main city square which is generally teeming with people and seagulls. The gulls tend to fly pretty low sometimes; I suspect they're used to flying unhindered at an altitute of just over 6 feet, so they and I both flinch when suddenly my fat head is in their flight path. I didn't get hit though. And we didn't get pooped on; surely that must happen, but we weren't witness to any such episode.

Off to one side of the square are two covered streets whose intersection is an octagon. This is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an important step in the evolution of the modern shopping mall. The roof is arched and made of glass and steel. Some very famous brand names grace these particular streets; as we walked through the intersection, I noticed three of the stores at the prime location of the intersection itself: Prada, Louis Vuitton, and... McDonald's of all things.



The covered street leads from the city square to the world-famous opera house La Scala. It's not very impressive to look at, so I didn't even take a picture. We strolled by it to hopefully get a peek inside, but it seems that, unless you're attending a show, all you can do is pay to get into the adjoining museum, which I have to say isn't our cup of tea. We did run into a scalper who had front-row seats to the evening's opera performance for only 100 euros each, but that was a little too steep for us; besides, front-row seats are generally not the best vantage point.

We did a bit of window shopping after hours (much cheaper that way), finding ourselves in the trendy district with the big names in fashion: Armani, Versace, Fendi, etc., etc., all cool stuff if you're into paying $2500 for your next handbag. At least we saw what Milan is known for.

Our final stop was Lake Como, which is a resort town in an area where apparently many celebrities have lakefront retreats. It was nice and relaxing; we took a boat tour to a few nearby towns and went for a hike for a nice view of the area. Fun to experience, not much to talk about. Have some pictures.

Milan, Italy

This past weekend we spent a few days in Milan. The second largest city in Italy, the city proper is small but densely populated, with 1.3 million people; the urban area has about 4 million. Milan is 3.5 hours from Geneva by train.



Fortunately it rained only at night, although some sunshine would have been nice.

Milan Central Station is rather large, with 24 train platforms side by side that are covered by massive steel canopies over 340m long. A third of a million people go through each day. Too bad much of the interior (away from the platforms) was under renovation... I'm sure it would have looked impressive without all the scaffolding and junk; in fact, it's supposed to be tied (with New York's Grand Central) for the title of most beautiful station in the world.

Milan is rather old, having been founded around 600 BC. Back in the day it was a round walled city, and the circular patterns of the roadways around the old centre are very much evident today. Here is a typical shot: plenty of old monuments and churches, the ever-present graffiti, roads often made of stones rather than asphalt, and no shortage of tram lines.


The demographics of Milan were somewhat surprising. We saw plenty of Japanese tourists, but there has been an unusual number of immigrants from Asia lately and this is quite noticeable. Apparently on par with other cities in northern Italy, Milan's population is quite old, with 30% of the residents over 60.

Milan's transit system is very good (subway, trams, buses). Transit lines extend far outside the city centre. Stats are comparable to Toronto transit except everything is over a smaller area and thus a little more usable. The streetcar we happened to use to go back and forth from our hotel was a little old and rickety... slow noisy uncomfy rides in an old crate with wooden doors; we saw nice new trams but those weren't going where we wanted to.

And transit prices... ahhh. A one-hour pass for the entire system cost only 1 euro (about $1.50), and a day pass was only 3 euros. Much cheaper than Toronto. Scads cheaper than Geneva. I suppose after living in Geneva, plenty of things will seem laughably inexpensive to us.

The amount of traffic in Milan was horrendous. With great public transit, a zillion moped users, and plenty of cyclists, there were still far too many cars on the road. The road... just one painted line in the middle is enough, to separate one direction from the other; as for the number of lanes: well, however many you can fit between those lines. Poor foreigners think they're on a nice wide road and drive in the middle of the "lane"... until a barrage of car horns tells them otherwise very quickly indeed.

I must say I haven't seen so many Smart cars anywhere. The place was crawling with them. On more than one occasion, we saw a parallel parking spot too small even for the length of a Smart, so the car was just parked nose-first to the curb. (I suppose that's the next best thing when you drive a car you can stick in your pocket when you're not using it.) Double parking was also very common, with the apparent belief that if you double park but keep your hazard lights on while you go to a restaurant for two hours, the poor sap you've boxed in won't mind waiting for your royal highness.

Speaking of restaurants, we went out a few times to eat. It's normal to have a cover charge of 2 euros at any restaurant, meaning that the moment we sat down we'd already incurred $6 on our bill. We surmised that this might be due to the fact that people easily spend two hours at a meal, so customer turnover isn't quite as high as in Canada. At first prices seemed a little steep, but it's helpful to note that prices include a tip and taxes (which in Canada adds up to 30% to a bill (no I'm not very Dutch)). We figured that since a tip is included and not something servers need to earn, the service would be sub-par. This was definitely not the case, although we had to get used to never being disturbed by a waiter for an entire meal unless we called one over.

We stayed at Hotel Mozart, which is a few km from the city centre but easy enough to get to and from. It was a nice quite spot, with an interesting street market right around the corner on Saturday that we checked out. Breakfast at the hotel was amazing: cold food only, but an excellent selection of fresh fruit, breads, pastries, and much more. And all free.

Well that took forever. Part 2 some time this or next week... and with a few more pictures too. Posts are no good without pictures.

And then there were 30

Yep I turned 30 this past Sunday (thanks for outing me Mrs. Bob... I may have remained silent if it hadn't been for you).

It was weird... the moment I turned 30 a pigeon came by and delivered a little rolled-up note. The note stated that, now that I'm "one of them", I am to tell every individual who is approaching 30 that the occasion is a horrible, scary, devastating and mind-altering experience. Apparently this is so that those younger folks will quit having fun and start developing ulcers in dread of the big day.

I could be wrong about the pigeon. Maybe it was a falcon. Or a figment.

Seriously, no problems turning 30. It just happens. Oh, except the hair...

The day before my b-day I went to the barber to get my first haircut of 2007. This is generally not a big ordeal but I couldn't exactly go into great detail on how I wanted my hairs cut since we were linguistically on completely different pages. And then to pay $40 for a cut that was less than perfect... oh well. I know, you ladies are scoffing at the low low price. Well, it's not so low low when you count on one hand the number of hairs that need tending to. (And yes I have an unusually large hand with dozens of digits.)

Anyway. So the hair is cut. As is the case after every haircut, I notice that my scalp is just that much more visible than the last time. I can't believe I started balding before 30! (Apologies to those who really are balding... I suppose my hairline is still on the front side of my head.) But at least I'm not going grey yet.. now that would have been a blow!! (Again, apologies to those who... oh forget it. My time will come.)

We're off to some cool places over the next two weekends, so hopefully I'll have something substantial to blog about the next time around.

Ciao!

Four weeks later...

Apparently it's not nice to go almost a month without blogging, but that's what happens when one doesn't do anything exciting. The only thing I did that was of any importance was go to the Geneva Auto Show. It is one of the major international auto shows, is held annually, and attracts about 750,000 people over 11 days. Since Carrie wasn't terribly interested in going I went on a weekday morning, a less busy time than weekends.

The event was held in a single rather large building, which I enjoyed over Toronto's layout which has you commuting between buildings by bus. And although that commute is free, Toronto's piddly auto show cost $20 whereas Geneva's (much bigger) was only $14.

I must say that a height advantage is a good thing at any people-infested event: I can stand in the third row of neck-craning oglers and my camera does all the looking from a height of 8 feet.

Since I didn't want to be there all day, I got there at 10:30am, stayed for 3 hours, and clicked till the camera died... 275 pictures later. What did shutterbugs ever do before the digital camera?

One slightly annoying thing was the multi-level floor. Many parts of the floor were raised a couple of inches, probably to hide cables and stuff under. But I don't understand why these raised areas couldn't end at the edge of a display area instead of extend into the walkways. As a result, every 8 seconds or so, I'd see someone suddenly become a little shorter, having suddenly walked off the edge of their known dimension. It must have happened to everyone, myself included; eventually we ceased to look around sheepishly after stumbling, resolving to look awkward with pride.

Some major auto shows have plenty of home-grown production vehicle debuts (e.g., Detroit), but since Geneva has no local automakers, there is a fair bit of focus on concept cars. Since everyone knows what cars look like, it's almost pointless to post any pictures. But really now, what's a post without pictures?

Not that there was any lack of space, but some cars were parked in the oddest places.


This Toyoa Auris is for you if you enjoy driving around in a giant mirror.


A random bunch of car pictures is not complete without the ultimate family sedan: a nice four-door Maserati. This one's price tag: well, you'd have to choose between the family sedan or a family home.


As expensive but less roomy is the Morgan Aeromax. You'd think after a 100 years they'd have changed the style a little, but hey... apparently it's cool. You could put down a $60,000 deposit at the auto show to reserve one. Only 100 of these will be made and they were all spoken for before the show was over.


This Spyker C12 Zagato is blog-worthy just because it's Dutch. And looks pretty snazzy.


Aston Martin. Every auto show needs a James Bond car. Nuff said.


In the realm of exotic cars, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 takes the cake. 16 cylinders. 1000 horsepower. 400 km/h. Oh, and 1.5 million bucks. Pretty much the top end of all supercars. Some pros, like 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. But some cons, like about 6 miles to the gallon.


And then some concept cars. Ford, Hyundai...


Honda, Citroën...


Toyota, Stola (talk about leg room!)...


And lastly, something that I guess you'd want to drive if you were trying not to get noticed in a crowd of ladybugs...