Summertime in watery Milan

What? Watery Milan?

Yup, rivers and canals (Navigli) heading toward and away from it, their beds now buried as they go through the city. The dock (darsena), once bustling with people and goods, now sadly stalled as the war wages for a parking lot under it. Lights shimmering. Water grass streaming. Hidden snippets of streams. Ducks and their little families plopping around ignoring the noise.

I wish Milan were even water-ier....More......

I wish that the canals that once circled and criss-crossed the city would be re-opened and cleaned and used to their full advantage for moving people quietly and as pollution-free as possible, and for their full tourist potential.

For now, we'll have to content ourselves with newly re-organized boat trips on the Naviglio Grande (fun! fun! fun! I've done it!): Navigli Lombardi(pages in English, yeah!). There's even a dinner tour available on Thursdays. (Hey...how much more romantic can you get?!)

How about taking a tour of what's left of the canals in town, including the lock built by Leonardo da Vinci? Go here.

Want to go biking, instead? You can bike all the way from Milan to the Adda river (pant! pant!) along the Martesana, Milan's Renaissance canal. This web site is in Italian, but the time tables and the map should be helpful, anyway.

Enjoy!

(My photos: Christmas time at the Naviglio Grande a few years ago, a trip down the Naviglio Grande last year and the "tombon" [lock] of Leonardo da Vinci)