MXP
– Milan, Italy.
“In Italy, women are more dangerous than
shotguns.” – The Godfather.
19th-21st
September 2012.
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| Duomo |
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| sweet tooth |
Milan
is known for one of the fashion capital in the world. I arrived there at the
hotel around 10 am, and the hotel was known for its homemade choco-chip cookie.
They even have it for sale at its souvenir shop. Lucky us as a crew, upon our
check in, they gave each of us a piece of that cookie. A piece here means a round
hand palm sized chocolate chip cookie, warm and chewy. It was a good treat
after a 12 hours flight. Nadia and I have already discussed our itinerary for
this trip. We were as good as when we were at Rome. We basically want to go to
Venice, which we decided to be on the full second day, and Nadia said she would
like to visit one of the Milan fashion week spot. As for me, Duomo Cathedral is
a must and the football stadium Giuseppe Meazza is also on the list. We mix and
matched our list and we made a perfect itinerary in the term of time base.
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| look back |
There
were no other boring things rather than to wait. We waited for more than 30
minutes just to get ourselves checked in. This hotel in very crowded, yet only
got 2 receptionists. Anyway, that gave us more time to recalculate our time
slot for the tour. So here what we were came up with: Duomo directly, Giuseppe
Meazza second, Fashion week in the evening, and Venice for the whole day the
day after. It happened that one of the crews want to join us to Duomo as well
as one of the second officer. The more the merrier. And when we said that we
would go directly after taking bath, they agreed to meet us in the lobby.
Great!
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| up front sunny Milano |
Stupid
us, we don’t search on how to get to Duomo. We asked the concierge and he said
we could buy the bus ticket (EUR 2.5) from the hotel and even gave us the map
and show us which direction is the bus station and which bus number to get on
(well, that’s what they were supposed to do anyway). The second officer, who
had been here before, easily found the bus stop and off we go to Duomo
Cathedral. Milan Cathedral is the cathedral church of Milan, Italy. Dedicated
to Santa Maria Nascente (Saint Mary Nascent), it is the seat of the Archbishop
of Milan, currently Cardinal Angelo Scola.
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| Nadia and Me |
The Gothic
cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete. It is the fifth largest
cathedral in the world and the largest in the Italian state territory. As it
came into the vicinity, Nadia and me was awed by its intricate detailing on the
walls, the pillars, and to put it simply, by the building itself. It is an
enchanting building symbolizing the heritage of the Italian architecture. I
guess it paid off the 6 centuries of the building process. As Nadia has said,
it was Milan fashion week, and Duomo is the iconic landmark at the heart of
Milan. That is why, the piazza in front of Duomo was blocked for the fashion
show of one of the famous designers. We have not lost the game yet, we still
got some good spot to take a picture of ourselves in front of the Duomo. And
after numerous beautiful pictures on a sunny day in front of the Duomo, now is
the time for us to get a close look on it.
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| Ingesso = Entrance |
Free
entrance as like the other cathedral around the world, except for the highest
tip on the roof, and a piece of stone tablet engraving its history. The plan
consists of a nave with four side-aisles, crossed by a transept and then
followed by choir and apse. The height of the nave is about 45 meters, the
highest Gothic vaults of a complete church (less than the 48 meters of Beauvais
Cathedral, which was never completed).The roof is open to tourists (for a fee),
which allows many a close-up view of some spectacular sculpture that would
otherwise be unappreciated. The roof of the cathedral is renowned for the
forest of openwork pinnacles and spires, set upon delicate flying buttresses.
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| trophies |
The
cathedral's five broad naves, divided by 40 pillars, are reflected in the
hierarchic openings of the façade. Even the transepts have aisles. The nave
columns are 24.5 metres (80 ft) high, and the apsidal windows are 20.7 x
8.5 metres (68 x 28 feet). The huge building is of brick construction, faced
with marble from the quarries which Gian Galeazzo Visconti donated in
perpetuity to the cathedral chapter. Its maintenance and repairs are very
complicated.
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| the culprits of my fat body |
I was
wearing short, that I wasn’t allowed to enter the cathedral (stupid, yes! But
it was a sunny day!). Out of the four of us, only Nadia and the second officer
went in. While they were inside, the other crew and I were still taking picture
and checked out the souvenir shops at the surroundings area. The surrounding
area seems to be the city center that got all this branded shops. I was like a
beggar in the middle of the high class stores jungle. It was nearly 2pm when
Nadia and the second officer came out from Duomo. We strolled around the area,
found Laduree shop, checked out some chocolate and delicacies stores and we
were starving.
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| cheering in a stadium |
This is
the best part of Italy, it seems that even the ugliest guy here, was still
better than at any other place. Jeez! And they put it in a good function. They
positioned all this hot guys on the street promoting for their restaurant.
Standing there, hot, and holding a menu. Phew! We chose one out of our random
pick. It was an Italian restaurant on an alley, decorated in traditional Italian
style. What did we ordered? Parma ham with rock melon to share, and each person
got either a portion of pasta or pizza. I got myself, as usual, quarto formagio
pasta. The best culinary discovery on earth. It cost us around EUR 15-20 for
each person. But that was a good one *welcome to a few pounds*. After the
lunch, the second officer and the other crew decided to go back to the hotel
and rest. So it came down into Nadia and me again. Duo!
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| no queue |
Next on
the list was Giuseppe Meazza. Even though I was not a big fan of any particular
football club. I was always that kind of girl that interested by the handsome
football player and only watched the world cup every 4 years. Ha-ha! This
Giuseppe Meazza thing was suggested by a friend of mine, a big fan of Intermilan
and asked me to buy the original souvenir for him. Okay! That’s not a big deal.
We went on the bus, according to the bus stop map, and it was actually seems
easy enough to find as we could see the brown signage *brown signage is used to
represents object of interest, in most of countries*. But it was much more
complicated that we’d expected. We got to transfer to another bus and stopped
in a very quiet area of Milan,
that we were not quite sure that it was the place of object of interest.
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| Internisti? |
Went on
with our faith, we looked around and got this big stadium look a like building
in the vicinity. No name placard of the building, so we went to check it out
from up close. After a good 200m walk, it was appeared on a banner, the name of
the stadium. Finally! The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro,
is a football stadium located in the San Siro district in Milan, Italy. It is
the home of both Associazione Calcio Milan and Football Club Internazionale
Milano, to be exact AC Milan and Intermilan. On 3 March 1980, the
stadium was named in honour of Giuseppe Meazza, the two-time World Cup winner
(who played for Internazionale, and briefly for Milan, in the 1930s and 1940s.
It held UEFA five-star stadium status which was superseded by a new system of
classification.
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| Famous Jersey |
The
admission fee was EUR 13. It was my first tour of a stadium. I would say that
it was quite an experience. The lady in the admission booth said that the
stadium tour would start in about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we could visit the
memorabilia or the small museum of the stadium. It contains all the jerseys of
all time, the history and the trophies from its triumphs. As soon as we enter
the room, we were greeted by a coin machine that would press a gold coin with
the stadium embossed on it for EUR 2. I made mine and soon started the tour.
The room divided into two. Blue for Intermilan and red for AC Milan, just like
its jerseys. I started at the blue corner, I didn’t pay that much attention
about the history of the teams, what’s more interesting all the names that bear
on the back of the jerseys. I guess Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo were quite a legend
there.
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| AC Milan changing room |
20 minutes
and few pictures after, we started our tour along with few other people (less
than 10). I admired the tour leader, she brought the tour in two languages,
English and Spanish, and she switched from one to another fluently! The tour
started from the staircase, to the immense bowl of the Stadium: a thrilling
view that enables you to appreciate the originality of a sports facility that
is one of the most beautiful in the world. It’s as much exciting to see San
Siro full of spectators, as it is to admire it totally empty and in its
everyday look. In fact that evening, Intermilan would have a match and the tickets was EUR 35. But, we
already had a plan. So, forget it!
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| Intermilan changing room |
The tour
continued to represents excellence in the landscape of world soccer: dedicated
personnel lead groups inside the Stadium, along the grandstands and the VIP
stands, the hospitality areas, the interview room and the players’ changing
rooms. The changing room of AC Milan, I would say, was more sophisticated and
high end luxurious than Intermilan’s. We were allowed to explore the changing
room and take pictures around. The tour leader even asked us to take a seat
around the player’s changing booth and later revealed to us to whom the chair
or bench that we were sat on. Considered a symbol par excellence of the city of
Milan, and one of the most popular arenas in the world, the San Siro Stadium
has earned the nickname “The Temple of Soccer”, for its prestige and the
caliber of all the events hosted on site, even apart from sports.
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| the canned grass |
Just like
any other tour, a tour would not be complete without a visit to the souvenir
shop. As promised I bought my friend an original Intermilan mug, just a
thoughtful gift for someone who work in an office. I also bought an AC Milan
keychain for one of my uncles that loved AC Milan to heart. And just about when
I was going to pay, I found an interesting can on the cashier desk. It’s
happened to be a canned field soil and grass taken from the stadium, on sale
for EUR 5. Excuse me?
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| Stadio San Siro |
We leaved
Giuseppe Meazza or San Siro museum about 5 pm and we headed back to the city
center. Along the way, we were tempted to buy double scoop ice cream for each
of us and soon after we finished our ice cream, there were the guilty feeling.
Appeared before our eyes were all these model wearing line of clothing standing
on the red carpet and taking pictures with people. Jaw dropped! They were so
skinny perfect and we were just like round shaped fat ass. It seems that a
designer was about to start his fashion show nearby because the crowd was
started to build up and we saw many of dressed up people coming holding
invitations on their hands, sunglasses on *even it was already 6 pm*.
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| Milan Fashion Week |
Milan
Fashion Week is an apparel trade show held semi-annually in Milan, Italy spring
/ summer event held in February - March of each year and autumn / winter event
held in September - October of each year. It was established along with Big 4 fashion
weeks internationally, the others being Paris Fashion Week, London Fashion Week
and New York Fashion Week. The schedule begins with New York, followed by London,
and then Milan, and ending the events in Paris.
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| whose seat is this? |
Milan
Fashion Week is owned by The National Chamber for Italian Fashion, a non-profit
association which disciplines, co-ordinates and promotes the development of
Italian Fashion and is responsible for hosting the fashion events and shows of
Milan. The "Camera Sindacale della Moda Italiana", was set up on 11
June 1958. This was the forerunner of the body which subsequently became the
"Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana". Proprietors of the most
important haute couture establishments in Italy, including some private
establishments, which, in those days, played a crucial role in the promotion of
this sector, were present at the Memorandum of Association: Maria Antonelli,
Roberto Cappucci, Princess Caracciolo Ginnetti, Alberto Fagiani, Giovanni
Cesare Guidi, Germana Marucelli, Emilio Federico Schuberth, Simonetta Colonna
Di Cesarò, Jole Veneziani, Francesco Borrello, Giovanni Battista Giorgini and
the lawyer Pietro Parisio.
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| Fashion Babe! |
The events
dedicated to women's fashion are the most important (Womenswear / Milan SS
Women Ready to Wear, and Milano Moda Donna being the major fashion shows). The
summer events dedicated to men include Menswear and Milano Moda Uomo. Wow! In my
23rd year living on this earth, I witnessed the crowd of fashion
lover in the world, here in Milan. What could I asked for more? Thank you,
Jesus! Lucky is a thing, but blessed is what we should feel after all for all
that happened in our life, that’s what I think. Finished tiptoeing in the crowd
and taking pictures, we head back to the hotel and reached our room by 10 pm. The
next day, we were planning to catch the bus to the main station and take the
train to Venezia, which is 4 hour distance by train. So we would like to start
early, about 5.30 am?
“I
might be lucky, but I am blessed indeed” – Me.
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