Fittingly, Corie's and my first day in Milan began with the best pumpkin-sage ravioli and meatball rigatoni we had ever had. Almost an hour earlier, the bus from the Bergamo airport to Milan dropped us off at the city’s Central Station, and we immediately set out on foot to explore the city on the way to our apartment.
After twenty minutes of walking, we stopped to search for restaurants and discovered we were standing in front of one of the most highly rated eateries.
It was a simple mom-and-pop place, nothing fancy. But we knew we were in for something special when we watched our waiter greet almost everyone who came in like they were longtime friends. The waiter didn’t bother to hand most of the guests a menu since most of the diners either had it memorized or stuck with their favorite dish. This was no tourist trap.
The aroma of our lunch made it difficult to not scarf down our lunches like a couple crazed honey badgers, even though our taste buds kept screaming “more!”
We followed our pasta lunch with a dessert of three Italian cheeses. In my earlier life as a bachelor, I thought parmesan cheese only came out of green plastic jars. As my tastes improved, I discovered the joy of freshly grated parmesan and even had what I thought were higher-end versions of the cheese. But nothing prepared me for the subtle nuttiness and tenderness of the real thing, especially when paired with our glasses of red wine.
With happy bellies, we set off once again to explore the city, passing many small boutiques that confidently confirmed Milan’s place as a top fashion capital.
That evening, we took a streetcar to the Navigilio Grande, one of the city’s remaining canals, for a relaxing boat tour through part of the city that was once home to workers’ apartments. Milan was once a city of canals, but most fell victim to changing modes of transportation in the 20th century. Most of the city's original canals are still there today, but they're under new roads and buildings.
Before the tour, we ducked into a doorway leading to a courtyard populated with small shops and a gallery of the local artist, Loredano Rizzotti, who’s work can be seen on his website.
Loredano’s English was only a little better than our Italian, but he had a useful way to communicate, a phone app that translates conversations in close to real time, a technique I've used before.
Too often, many people worry that a language barrier prevents rewarding experiences when traveling overseas, but I have often found the opposite to be true. While the conversations are more challenging, navigating different means of communication speaks to our humanity. When one can share a laugh with a person who doesn't speak your language, it's much easer to see that we humans are the same the world over.
That was the feeling I had talking with Loredano, who was eager to talk about his work with two strangers who loved it. Art, along with all other forms of creativity and expression, is the world's shared language after all.
We were drawn to the gallery by one of his works in progress, visible through the window, of a stack of antique books. He explained his favorite subjects are often reminders to a more simple past, a philosophy that seemed very much at home in Milan.
Our first day in Milan ended the same way it began, a bit of a walk and a memorable meal. This time it was a Margherita pizza in a recently opened restaurant. When our waitress brought our pizza to the table, she informed us that we could pick as much basil as we would like for our pizza from their fresh herb garden bordering the patio. I won’t lie to you. It was dang tasty.
The next day, Corie and I met up with our longtime friends from the States and came across an unexpected surprise. Join me next week, and I'll take you there.
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