May Day, May Day...! Will the public transportation be available?

May Day! May Day!

The public transportation service will not be normal on the first of May, a public holiday. Instead, it will run in Milan from 7 A.M. to 7:30 P.M. (too bad that the ATM English language pages of the web site are not complete...you would have missed this news, had you depended on THEM!).

Beware, too, on the 30th of April...Saturday hours will be in force on this pre-holiday day.

Check the websites for the public transportation of other cities.

Hope this helps!

Enjoy!

Wow! Italy has a new (private) train service: .italo

Today, a new (private and fast) train service five years in the making fired up the first trains: ".italo"...yeah!

With only a handful of stops (for now), but touted as cheaper than the national train service "Trenitalia," it--like some low-cost plane services--uses the more peripheral stations...More...

In Rome, it arrives and departs from Tibertina, while in Milan you can catch it at the Rogoredo station (easily reached with the yellow line of the subway) and at the Porta Garibaldi station (for the moment, easily reached with a few bus lines, but in the next few years, it will be on the new blue subway line).

Other cities? Turin, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Salerno. All of the stations may not yet be active.

Got any more good news?

Yes!

It has pages in English! http://www.italotreno.it/EN/DISCOVER-ITALO/Pages/overview.aspx

So, what's the service like? The wagons looked modern and comfortable, but you'll have to wait 'til I take it for the scoop on plugs and WiFi and...let's face it...clean bathrooms.

In the meantime...enjoy!

P.S., Google and Blogger have changed things, again, and--at least for the moment--it's not possible to preview the entire message before sending...so here's crossing my fingers that all goes well!

Freshen up your house at the international furniture trade fair, April 17-22, Milan

That sofa looking a bit ragged? Living room looking a bit drab? Brighten things up on a big scale at the international furniture trade fair in Milan (April 17-22), in the 'new' fairgrounds and convention center in the suburb twin city of Rho-Pero: http://www.cosmit.it/en/salone_internazionale_del_mobile (hey, it's in ENGLISH!).

NOTE: "Open to the general public only on Saturday, April 21, and Sunday, April 22." (P.S., April 21st is Rome's birthday...happy birthday, Rome!)

Take the handy subway out...but forewarned is forearmed. The convention center is outside the circle of the standard public transportation fee, so there's a surcharge on the basic round-trip ticket. Get the skinny (in English, yeah!), here: http://new.atm-mi.it/en/ViaggiaConNoi/Biglietti/Pages/BigliettiRhoFiera.aspx.

State Museum Freebies April 14-22

For the XIVth annual week of culture (April 14-22), the Italian government is offering free entry to STATE-owned museums: http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Contenuti/MibacUnif/Eventi/visualizza_asset.html_622988441.html (in Italian).

Other museums may not participate (and don't bedrudge it...entrance fees cover only a small portion of day-to-day costs, let alone the humongous costs incurred for mounting special exhibits).

Gather ye (painted and sculpted) rosebuds while ye may...

Enjoy!

Milano City Marathon (not to be confused with the StraMilano marathon) and blankets

Run covered with a blanket? I guess they do have those space-age blankets. You could run covered in one of those.

You're going to need it, tomorrow (April 15), for the Milano City Marathon (because of which the center of town will be closed to car traffic until mid-afternoon...the up side is that the ATM ticket is valid for a lot longer). More rain and cold is predicted...More......

Want more info about this marathon through town (not to be confused with the StraMilano that took place last month)...in English? Here's a bank's website with helpful stuff (no plug for the bank intended, but, Cosmos bless them, they have a page in English): http://milanocitymarathon.gazzetta.it/?lang=en.

You're going to need extra blankets even if you're not running in the marathon.

Right on time with the return of the cold is the city-wide (nation-wide?) mandated shutting off of centralized heating.

So, get out your blankets, cuddle up, and watch the runners go by.

Enjoy!

Accessible (i.e., affordable) Art, 12-15 April, 2012

Love art, and wish you could buy and collect originals? This one's not for sale, though! It's one of my needlepoints!

Here's your chance. Another "affordable art" event: Arte accessibile.

Now in it's 4th edition, it will be held in...More......

...the "Spazio EventiQuattro" of the newspaper group Il Sole-24 Ore"* in via Monte Rosa, 91, Milan, from the 12th to the 15th of April.

For further info about times and costs: http://www.arteaccessibile.com/en/. Yeah! At least part of it is in English!

To follow my blog on hand-done needlepointing, see "Ars acupicturae - Star's Needlepoint Art," http://arsacupicturaestellae.blogspot.com.

*For those of you who don't speak Italian, the number "24" is pronounced "venti-quattro," so the name of the space "Eventi-Quattro" is a play on their newspaper name.

Blatant Plug for a Friend's One-Man Show (and the scoop about what I did with my Easter vacation)

Here's a blatant plug for a friend's one-man show: popular John Peter Sloan will delight (mostly in Italian) audiences at the Teatro Smeraldo, Milan, on the 12th of April, 2012, for more information and other cities, see http://www.teatrosmeraldo.it.

Go, John!

And now for the scoop about my Easter Sunday and Angel Monday...More......






Lovely, lovely, lovely: much needed rest and the healing comforting company of friends (none of whom are visible in this snap of the lovely weather to be had in the Piazza del Duomo on Easter day, the same angle appearing in a blog post months ago with the taxis waiting in dreary weather, http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.it/2010/11/milans-taxis.html).


Walked my friend to the tram, and spotted this spring-y little robot in a shop window on Via Torino.

Fade out Easter day, fade in Angel Monday...huh? 'What is Angel Monday?,' I can hear you asking. I'd never heard of it before coming to Italy, either, so don't feel silly. If you're not Catholic, you probably don't know, either.

It's the Monday immediately following Easter, and is a holy feast day dedicated to angels, so it's a public holiday, too. (Good going! This is one thing I *love* about living in Italy...the hectic pace of modern life is tempered with a sprinkling of a few more public holidays than in the U.S., well, at least it WAS...with the crunch, some of them have been cancelled, boo-hoo!)

Got another glimpse of one of the "crazy" new skyscrapers going up around town. This one in the Porta Nuova* area looks like it's pregnant.

*The second, newer, Porta Nuova, from the NeoClassical era, not the earlier, older one of the same name (that wasn't very clever, was it?) from the medieval period. I think I should do a post just on the gates of Milan.


Did I mention two excellent movies, too?

The first movie we saw, and had planned to see, is called "Magnifiche Presenze" ("Magnificent Presences") by Ozpetek, a Turk, who has lived many years in Rome, where the film is set (in Italian, but with a video, http://www.cinetv.info/film/commedie/magnifica-presenza-trama-e-trailer/). I'll only reveal what is clear from the billboards: a young man somehow comes into contact with spirits from the 1940s. A dream-like film, gorgeous to see, too, that explores the relationship between reality and fiction, but with a delicate touch. I'd enjoy seeing it, again, and that's always a good sign.

Wandering in a dreamy state, we chanced by the theater where the other film that had interested us was playing, but another one looked even better, and was more personally significant: "La scomparsa di Patò" (The Disappearance of Patò), book and screenplay by a wonderful author, Camilleri, http://www.comingsoon.it/Film/Scheda/Trama/?key=48318&film=La-scomparsa-di-Pato.

Is it crazy to see two films, one right after the other? Who cares?! In the right place at the right time, we launched ourselves into that experience, too. I was very curious to see how the film transposed the narrative--expressed through a series of letters and newspaper clippings--into film. I won't spoil the surprise, I'll only say that--except for the more obvious spelling out of the ending, which in the book is more delicately and effectively left to the reader's imagination--it was a delightful expression of the story.

The two-day holiday (with a bit of work thrown in so as not to feel guilty!) came to a delicious end: oh, what a heavenly smell and colors...the wisteria is blooming on via Monte Santo - Monte Grappa.

I hope your Easter and Angel Monday were restful and significant, too.

These pictures were snapped on Easter Sunday and Angel Monday with you in mind for your personal, non-commercial pleasure.

Enjoy!

This time, it's pleasure before business: art with a social purpose

"SLA-Start Living Again" is open until the 15th of May at the Centro Diagnostico Italiano in via Saint Bon, 20 (link in Italian).....More......

The exhibit, promoted by a photography group (Circolo di Cultural fotografica) and sponsored by the Bracco Foundation, takes its name and inspiration from "SLA," the Italian acronym for the disease commonly known in English as "Lou Gehrig's disease." The exhibit shows glimpses of life, of hope, of nature and of dignity in fifty-five photographs realized by fifty-five Italian and European photographers to recount "movement," the very thing difficult for those afflicted with the disease.

Proceeds from the sale of the photographs and the catalogue of the exhibit sustain research to combat the disease.

I snapped this movement-oriented "light painting"--NOT in the exhibit!--on the 15th of January, 2012, at about 4 P.M.



While I'm on an "art with a social purpose" roll, at the "House of Energy" (Casa dell'Energia) of Milan's semi-public electricity utility, AEM, from the 2nd to the 12th of April there will be an exhibit geared to helping us understand autism, a permanent neurological condition that interferes with communication and social interaction.

Born of collaboration between the parents of children affected with autusim and the "Art Among the People Association" (Associazione Arte tra la Gente), the exhibit, open in Piazza del Po 3 from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. (except for the 7th-9th of April for Easter) is in honor of the world day dedicated by the U.N. to this syndrome.

I've no pictures to show you for this exhibit on autism because I prefer to use my own, and the exhibit isn't open, yet (even when it opens, they may not allow photographs), so you'll have to go check it out for yourself, then tell us about it.

For more info about the House of Energy (in Italian): http://www.casadellenergia.it/home/cms/cae/contatti/.

Enjoy!

It's darkest before the dawn...Saturday, March 31, from 8:30 P.M. to 9:30 P.M., WWF "Earth Hour" in Milan

If you're in Milan, and everything goes dark this Saturday from 8:30 to 9:30 P.M., you're not in the middle of an alien attack...it's WWF's "Earth Hour" during which the organization encourages the private and public sectors to shut off all electricity to highlight environmental problems, and what we can do to fix them (even when the solution, as in this case, isn't really very practical).

Plan a pyjama party, and use the hour to snuggle with friends and family.

Enjoy!

(I snapped this picture on the 22nd of November, 2008, at around 6:30 P.M.)

Ferrara...finally!

It's rather embarrassing...an art historian of Italian Renaissance art and architecture, who'd never been to Ferrara...but I finally remedied that on Sunday, with a small delightful group of friends.

Now I wonder why I'd waited so long! (Truth to tell, getting there with public transportation is MUCH more pleasant, now that there's a FAST train from Milan to Bologna, where you have to change.)

Lovely, and VERY much worth the little bit of effort to go. More......

A trip to the Palazzo Diamante (so-called for the diamond-shaped points on the mansion's exterior) to see the exhibit of the works of the Spanish Impressionist Sorolla (marvellous!) was the occasion. No picture-taking allowed, so you'll have to look him up for yourself.











Este ruler portraits literally put up on pedestals right across from the Duomo...just in case you weren't clear who was in charge.










A pair of scary lions and sphinxes to protect the Duomo.















Churches galore (this one's San Francesco), which we didn't have time to explore...have to go back!


And the other reason for going: Palazzo Schifanoia ("Get Rid of Boredom Mansion"), though I have to confess that the famous Renaissance frescoes were much less impressive than the somewhat later frescoes in the ducal palace in Urbino, in large part because of the poor state of conservation of most of them. Still, it was important to go and see for myself.

So, 'here my are!' in Ferrara!

Star's for the trip? 4.5 out of 5 (nibbling a bit off for the fact that one has to change trains once, but really it's no biggie)

Go, and enjoy!

Hope you're free this weekend (March 24-25)

Running, but wanted to get you the skinny for your weekend plans: nosy around gorgeous Italian places usually closed to the public.

FAI-Fondo Ambiente Italiano is a non-profit organization set up twenty years ago to preserve and open to the public not just historic places and monuments (the first things, frankly, that come to my mind), but also precious territories, such as wetlands and special gardens.

Will you be in Italy this weekend, and have some time on your hands? Here's the regional map (only in Italian, sorry folks!) of what will be open and where: http://www.giornatafai.it/Elenco-luoghi-aperti-2012.htm.

Hey, why not become a member, too? It's about the same price as a "Friends" membership for your local museum.

Running,...hugs!

P.S., Italy "springs forward" to daylight savings time this weekend.

Flowers and "Footing" in Milan

Are you out and about, today, the 13th of March? Did you see S. Barnabas marching into Milan to combat all the pagan idols? Did you see him plunge a cross into a Celtic pagan stone carved with a sun with 13 rays? If you did, sit down, and take it easy because......More......

...you've been wandering around town for 1961 years!

The stone once was in S. Dionysius, one of the churches founded by S. Ambrose (our patron saint, who lived in the 4th century A.D.), but that church was torn down in the late 18th century to make way for a public park, and some of its bits were installed in other churches. The donut-shaped stone with the sun's rays is now set in the pavement of the church called Santa Maria al Paradiso, erected or rebuilt in 1590 (the façade was redone in 1896) because it is to this church on Corso di Porta Vigentina that the monks were moved from S. Dionysius.

A picture of the stone is available on the city's tourism website, but the page is among those not translated. (Thank you to my English student, L., for this link!)

Crazy enough (in my opinion, of course!) to like going jogging and running? Then the 25th of March in Milan is for you. About 9 A.M. the "StraMilano" (i.e., "SuperMilano") will start at the Duomo, and wind its way through the city for about 5 hours. You can go "footing" (as jogging sometimes is called, here) at your own pace, and at least this page on the city's tourism site is in English.

Do you, by the way, know what this tree is? I snapped this in the spring a year, or so, ago...and still wonder what it is. No particular smell, good or bad, just lovely pink flowers all over this medium-sized puffy-topped tree. (How's that for an accurate botanical description?!)

Enjoy!

Yes, I honestly do love Milan...

Was talking with another ex-pat the other day. Her jaw dropped, and her voice raised in stupefied wonder..."You really do like Milan?! What can you possibly like about it?!"...More......

It's beautiful, folks!

Stop seeing the city through the gray-colored lenses of prejudice.

The city is lovely...snippets of ancient, medieval and Renaissance lives peek out from around the corners of the more present Baroque, Neo-Classical, Belle Epoque, Liberty (that's Milanese Art Nouveau, in case you haven't been following my blog, yet), Novecento and modern (and some of the post-war stuff is even decent, too). (Yes, yes, yes, there are some pretty dull and, I hear, dangerous rabbit warrens in the suburbs, but there are enough people complaining about Milan, you don't need me to do that.)

The city is also fascinating and lively (though I'm [repeatedly] told it was even more wonderful and lively in the 1960s, but we don't choose when and where we're born, do we?!). There's so much to do, and for so many different interests, that I don't even scratch the surface.

It's pretty easy to get around...I love not having to drive a car. Thank you ATM! (Could you please stop striking so often, though? Get your act together, and TALK sufficiently before deadlines, please. I know striking is a legal right in Italy, but it should be a last option, not an omnipresent club hovering over the heads of the poor and middle class, who can't afford private drivers and taxis up the wazoo. Thank you for listening, I'll get off my soapbox, now....)

The people used to be polite...ahhhh, that sounds too much like an incipient complaint, so let's move on.

The city even can be picturesque! Ain't that picture urban-cute? (I snapped it with you in mind a few Saturdays ago, around 9 A.M. for your personal, non-commercial fun.)

I could go on and on and on, but then what would be the point of any future posts?

So, why do so many people--Milanese, imported Italians and ex-pats alike--goggle, when I say that I love Milan?

Here's the historian in me coming out.

Personally, I think that Italians haven't had their "Mount Ventoux."

Huh?

Petrarch is often cited as one of the turning points in modern occidental thought. Why?

Because he literally had his Mount Ventoux.

He climbed to the top of the mountain to see the view (already cited as something "new"...who ever heard of going to all that trouble and fatigue just to look out over the surrounding area? "You mean, he's not even going to gather mushrooms? The man's nuts!"), and for the first recorded/significant time realized that there was an immense gap between him and antiquity.

He felt the gap.

He felt a longing for what was no longer his: classical culture.

He felt nostalgia.

At least until recently, for the period prior to Petrarch scholars talk about a continuity of mentality, rather than a rift.

The Early Christians--aside from their new religion, and there were other "mystery" religions proliferating, too--felt fully Roman, fully Greek, fully whatever they were. Changing religion didn't change the fact that you and your family had been born, lived and died in Ephesus, Rome, Milan, Jerusalem, or even the tiniest waterhole on the way to Timbuktuu.

The Carolingian renascence refreshed, rather than revived, ancient culture, where it already had existed, and spread it (also for socio-political reasons) where it hadn't.

Medieval images of ancient and biblical people were cast in then modern clothes. "They are just like us; we're just like them."

Then in a literal (or was it a topos?) flash, Petrarch saw.

He saw that he was separate from the classicism he so dearly loved.

He saw that he was different.

He appreciated the classicism, and mourned the gap.

And so today's Italians have not yet had their Mount Ventoux.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--so evident in Milan because they were a fervent period of economic booms and busts...ring any bells?...--is still seen as a part of them (and the good things about the Novecento period are still swept under the rug along with the bad).

"What's so special about this? It looks just like my grandma's house," I hear while I'm at work at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum (via Gesù 5), a marvelous authentic magic window onto our recent and traditional aristocratic past.

Sigh.

So, give yourselves a shake.... No, not that kind of chocolate, or vanilla, shake.

A wiggling from side-to-side, clear your head of cobwebs.

And see beautiful Milan for what it is.

It helps if you raise your eyes from the sidewalk....

Enjoy!

A chocolate festival (2-11 March 2012) in Milan's kissin' cousin: Turin

Like chocolate? What a silly question.

From the 2nd to the 11th of March, 2012, in the downtown Piazza Vittorio Veneto of Turin, Italy's chocolate capital, there will be the "Cioccolatò" fair of chocolate....More......

Lots of stands, more than 6,000 different products, and "Spalm Beach"--complete with lawn chairs--where you can relax, taste, and even be massagged with chocolate. (Why "Spalm"? "Spalmare" means to spread...what everyone loves to do with one of Italy's favorite chocolate treats, Nutella, a spreadable mix of chocolate and hazelnut paste...though I can't say I've ever taken to it, Italians go nuts for it.)

Why Turin? Because the city has a loooooooonng love affair with chocolate, beginning with the cup of hot chocolate offered in 1560 by the duke of Savoy, Emanuele Filiberto, to the city to celebrate the transferral of his dukedom's capital from Chambéry to their town, now full of caffés offering this marvelous stuff (it's like hot chocolate pudding...are you salivating, yet?).

Turin is a wonderful city with a long and fascinating history. The pre-Romans were called Taurini (perhaps meaning "people from the mountains," though the symbol "taur" was rendered by the head of a bull, a "toro"), while Romans established a military camp there in the first century B.C. to protect their northern borders. In the early Middle Ages, the city bordered the lands of the Franks, while the association with the Savoy line popped up in the Romanesque period. Love history? Turin's official newspaper, the Eco di Torino, offers some info in Italian with handy pre-fab buttons for Google Translator, which gives you a rough idea of the text in rough English: http://www.ecoditorino.org/augusta-taurinorum-origini-e-storia-del-capoluogo-piemontese.htm.

Want to know more before you go? Turin smartly offers a wide range of official tourism info in English (yeah!), including maps, hotel info, traveling info, museums and events, history in a nutshell, WiFi, etc.: http://www.comune.torino.it/canaleturismo/en/. They also have an official city web site in English (yeah!), with practical information, particularly for English-speakers living in the city: http://www.comune.torino.it/en/.

I can't resist recommending at least two museums: the Egyptian Museum (Museo Egizio, look under "Egizio" on the tourism web site's page dedicated to museums), one of the most important Egyptian museums in all the world, second only to the one in Cairo, and the museum in the historic Mole Antonelliana dedicated to movies (look under "Cinema" in that same list). Even if you're not a great fan of the history of the movie industry, the spectacles of the exhibits are great fun in and of themselves.

Wanna go? Want the skinny? It takes from one to two hours on one of Italy's national train service (Trenitalia) trains, depending on the service chosen. Cost? Reasonable. For a one-way second class ticket on the 1 hour train, it's currently just under E. 35.00(ca. $50), while for the 2 hour train, it's only about E. 11.00 (ca. $15.50). You can check the schedules and buy tickets on their website in English (yeah!), and chose to print out the ticket on your own printer. You can enter these city names in English or in Italian (Milano, Torino), but remember that usually only the more well-known cities have an English version, in case you want to go somewhere else, too: http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD.

A "heads up"...Turin, like many other Italian cities, has more than one train station. Sometimes the train stations are dedicated to services belonging to different companies (national and private). Sometimes the city is big enough--as in Turin's case--to warrant two stations. They're often signaled on the web site and in printed train guides only with their initials. Oh man...which one to choose?! For other cities, try Google maps. For Turin, get off at the P.N.--for Porta Nuova / New City Gate--station; it's the most central one. Once there, get a map, and walk. The heart of downtown is small enough so that you won't need to take public transportation if you don't suffer from mobility problems.

Enjoy!

Neo-Romanesque fun on via Boscovich

Like a bit of fun kitsch now and then?...More......












How about a lizard gargoyle, or two?












Head off to via Boscovich 32, and what I'm thinking was the Milanese headquarters of the French movie company, Pathé, at the turn-of-the-century.

Reminds me of the Berri-Meregalli palazzo by Arata (1911-1914) on the corner of via Mozart and via Cappuccini. He's the same architect also responsible for the original early 20th century design for the Stazione Centrale...before the project got stalled and was modified before being realized.

I snapped these photos with you in mind this morning around 9 A.M.-ish.

Enjoy!