Shiny Veneers and Second Skins: Milano

Time flew away and I never got a chance to write about my trip to Milan. But it's most definitely worth a post so I'll sum it up with mostly pictures and a few words.

                  

I've been to Milan before and had mixed feelings about returning. The first time I visited I was with a group of Italians and liked the city a lot, the second time I was alone and felt uncomfortable and uneasy. This time I was visiting my good friend Jess and saw a new side of the city that made me love it like I did the first time. In fact, it wasn't just one side of Milan that I saw, but a multiplicity of layers in a city people often typecast as being cold and unwelcoming. Beyond the concrete, the overtly-touristy (and pigeon-populated) Piazza del Duomo, behind the shiny veneer of all the fashion shop-fronts, Milan has a second skin that perhaps you don't find as a tourist. Strolling through Autumn parks, relaxing on plant-covered roof terraces, drinking a suspicious drink they call 'Tropical Island' in a square full of people beneath the oldest columns in all of the city, and eating possibly the best cheese-cake in all of Italy. I would return to Milan only for the cheesecake, but if not for all the rest of it too...

Falling for Florence

My memory of Florence will always be the sight of the Cathedral as we approached on that first evening. This great building looming before us, all the more jaw-dropping with every step as each intricate detail becomes more and more defined. Green and pink and white, standing in all its glory against the clear blue sky. Ah Firenze, here I am; in this city I’d heard so much about, that I’d so wanted to visit, that people had told me I’d like so much. I could have stood all day studying every detail of the grand duomo, but sun was setting and we wanted to capture the Ponte Vecchio with the orange and pink sky… That night we sat outside at Santo Spirito and had aperitivo and cocktails, planning the next day’s adventures and all those thereafter.

Seeing all of Florence in a day proved tiring but doable. We began at Piazza della Signoria, admiring the Florentine architecture of the Palazzo Vecchio and the mythical statues of the Loggia dei Lanzi, where Perseus captures the attention of every passing tourist as he stands triumphantly baring the head of Medusa.

In a city of art and architecture, it is almost essential to visit one of the galleries. We decided on the Galleria degli Uffizi, having been told by a friend that although we would miss out on seeing the famous David, this gallery has a wider selection of famous renaissance and medieval paintings. Now, I’m not so well informed on art and what not but I can say with my limited knowledge that these painters aren’t half bad… Though in all honestly I was more taken aback by the building itself; designed with two wings, a courtyard in between, and surrounded by windows providing rather impressive views of Florentine streets and the River Arno. The corridors are decorated with ceiling frescos and lined with statues, whilst doors lead off into the galleries.

After sitting in a cute café for lunch, we headed up and up the many stairs to admire the stunning city views at Piazzale Michelango, then up even more to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, perhaps the most interesting church I’ve ever seen. The interior is made up of a mixture of signs of the zodiac and symbolic animals, alongside the remains of original frescoes from the 13^th and 14^th centuries. Then you exit and are once again taken aback by the sight before you, such a view that I think would be impossible to ever get used to. That is Florence all over. Surrounded by such beauty that I think you could never walk around the city and not be taken aback by what you see, no matter how many times you’ve seen it.

I come away from Florence with the details of the Cathedral, the views from Piazzale Michelangelo and that creamy cinnamon ice cream etched deeply in my memory. Though as a city to live in I prefer Bologna (and have not yet found somewhere I like more!), there is something about Florence that will continue to draw me back, so many depths to her I know we didn't get a chance to see in just one day, so many more intricacies to gaze at and finery to fall for.

Becoming Bolognese

When does a new place become a home? I call London home freely, and it gets me into trouble sometimes, a slip of the tongue and I have my mum insisting 'London isn't your home, this is your home!'. Of course she's right, Yorkshire will always be home; the rolling hills, the biting cold, the smell of Yorkshire air when you step off the aeroplane, the tea, the Northern twang, family. But actually I am neither born nor bred in the county I so effortlessly call my home, and have lived there for only 9 of my 20 years. So here I am sat in this new city wondering what makes a home home... Wondering whether I will ever call Bologna home, wondering whether I already accidentally have... It doesn't have to be so philosophical; a new country, city, house linguistically becomes a home merely out of facility. It's just a word after all. Italians (and in many other languages I imagine) use 'casa' for both house and home, so I really should stop scrutinising this little four letter word. Nevertheless, I like to overthink things and made a conscious effort at the beginning to avoid the 'h' word. Since then, I have allowed by efforts to slip, and both linguistically and physically our little Bolognese flat has evolved into something of a home.

We (me and my roommate, Josie) traipsed around the city for three long, painful days before finding our flat, and then over-enthusiastically accepted it within 5 minutes of walking away. The truth is, nothing could have prepared me for the flat-hunting nightmare. We began by looking for two separate single rooms, and when that appeared to be almost impossible, decided to search together for a twin room. With one obstacle overcome, the next was convincing flat-owners to rent us a room though we would only be there for 6 months. Rejection after rejection, posters baring 'NO ERASMUS', empty phone calls and pointless flat-viewings. With hope almost lost, I resigned myself to living in the hostel - which was comfortable and provided endless tea and coffee - before something appeared; a decent room, a great location, no drama, no obstacles - what's the catch? Though we may have spent a good few hours scrubbing mould off the wall and trying to understand why there was no contract to sign, though we may have to hand-hold the shower-head and light the hob with matches, and though our minuscule beds may feel as though they may collapse any minute, there is no catch. I'm now living in a perfectly imperfect Bolognese apartment, with one of the city's most famous gelaterias right opposite (taunting me), Bologna's beautiful gardens a five minute walk away and my half 8 morning class a 4 minute run away...

The next few days after moving in involved arranging furniture, ikea shopping and filling the kitchen with Italian food, fresh herbs and English tea. Now I have created a 'baking cupboard' and stuck up vocab sheets in the kitchen, and there we have it - dare I say it - a 'home away from home': this one is made of pasta, stilted Italian conversations and postcard-covered walls.

Since the beginning, life has gradually evolved from the new and exciting - days filled with sight-seeing, photo-taking and museum-going - to the perfectly comfortable - trying new Italian recipes, chatting and laughing in the kitchen, watching films and visiting cafés. Uni has begun, routine has been found, and though I am still discovering new places, taking shameless tourist photos and getting lost, it is nice to feel as though you don't have to be doing something everyday all the time in order to be 'making the most of the year abroad'. I think this means I'm settled, I thinking this means I might be becoming Bolognese.

They don't call her 'La Rossa' (the red) for nothing...

Parmesan, Parma Ham and Narnia

Wandering around Parma and me and my friend, Jess, found ourselves immersed in a 10-minute conversation about the use of the word ‘nice’ in the English language. “But I just can’t think of a better way of saying it… it’s just so nice… I mean, look how nice this is!” I said as we stopped for the hundredth time that day to take as many touristy shots as possible of the pretty lamppost in the cute little street filled with window-shutters and flowers and rickety bikes with wicker baskets. Forget trying to blend in with the Italians (hey, I’m blonde, it’s virtually impossible), Parma was all about embracing the ‘I’m a tourist’ attitude, which meant coming away with tired feet, 200 photos to sort through and a belly and a bag full of Parma ham.

First impressions of the town had us both planning a Parma ham-filled lunch and getting an early train back to Bologna. Final impressions had us planning Parma-ham filled dinners for the next week and getting a train back to Parma in not too long… “It was just so nice!”.

In a nutshell, our Parma was a series of cobbled streets, artisan food stores, and stumbling across beautiful monuments, churches and palazzos… not to mention a very Italian-style wedding involving a pair of street-performers giving an impromptu performance of The Wedding March (before proceeding to ask the father-of-the-bride and all the onlookers for money) and a loved-up couple in an old, blue car disappearing down a church-side alleyway.

Though I saw none of the following things, there was something about Parma that made me think of postmen riding bikes, Sound of Music-esque convents and snow-covered lanes lit only by streetlights. I could imagine myself transported back to Italy in wartime, or Roman time. In fact, there is almost a sense of timelessness about the city; from the hustle-and-bustle of the restaurant-lined streets to the peaceful calm of the hidden-backstreets.

Crossing the eerily dry river (which I later learned is more of a stream, and regularly dry – thanks Wikipedia) we found our way to Parco Ducale, a park which made me feel that I had stepped into autumn, into some Italian–style Narnia, a world away from the car-hooting, smog-filled twenty-first century. Re-entering our comparatively substandard world and the only thing left to be done was to buy us some ham. And that we did. And now prosciutto is being paired with pesto and bread and spaghetti, and savored as though Parma really is in another world within some irretrievable wardrobe. In fact, the wardrobe can be retrieved with the golden train ticket, and then the magical world of Parma is only an hour away.

Bologna, La Bella

It has been over two weeks now since I came to live in Bologna, and I haven’t written a single post. To be honest, it has been a whirlwind of flat-hunting, flat-bonding, course-searching, course-starting, city-touring and photo-taking. It has taken two weeks for me to feel like I really live in Bologna, so now it’s time to write…

(I want to begin with just a little overview of the city before going more in depth into each dimension in the weeks to come.)

What little I knew from Bologna before coming here came from my time as an au pair. Italians I met would say ‘ah you will love Bologna – it is the perfect city for a student!’. They told me three things: that the people were the nicest in Italy, the food famously delicious and the weather infamously terrible. That, and being the birthplace of what we call Bolognese and what the Italians call ragù, was the extent of my knowledge of the city that I would soon call home. Now that I can call the city home, those three things have stuck with me, shaping my first impressions and forming my lasting impressions of Bologna.

Ah Bologna, Bologna… was it love at first sight? Perhaps… My first exploration of the city came one evening, on a stroll from the hostel I was staying in down to the heart – Piazza Maggiore. I wandered beneath the famous Bolognese arches on marble floors, caught my first glimpse of the two booming red-brick towers keeping watch over the city, stumbled across a series of little alleyways filled with fresh fruit and vegetable stalls, storefronts with ostentatious displays of meats, tortellini and cheese, and stands of fresh flowers and herbs. Diners outside in the main square showed off the famous Bolognese dish of tortellini al ragù whilst enjoying the September sun and relative calm of this grand piazza, marked by 4 famous buildings: Palazzo dei Banchi, Basilica di San Petronio, Palazzo dei Notai and Palazzo d’Accursio. Irrespective of their impressive names, each is remarkably stunning; decorated with intricate details which, when closely observed, increase the initial beauty of the facades… what I mean to say is, on first sight the edifices are beautiful, but on closer attention they take your breath away.

That is, in fact, Bologna all over. Every day I have walked around the city I have discovered another ornate detail to amaze me; elaborate facades I never noticed before, charming pizzerias with €1 slices, the creamiest gelato I have ever tasted. And as the air becomes slightly crisper, it is almost like a new dimension of Bologna is being revealed. Winter is just around the corner and I can’t wait to discover even more about this city through the falling leaves, the frost and the snow.