milano in 24 hours

I arrived in Milan on Monday morning. It was intended as a layover, on my way to the Ligurian coast. I’ve been to Milan a few times before, but always as an after-thought, or as part of a business trip. My impression of Italy’s second largest city had been neutral at best. I wanted to give Milan another shot. And I’m glad I did . It intrigued me more than any other time before, and it has me wanting to go back for more.

I landed at Malpensa airport after a red-eye from Boston . From there I took the train to Milano Centrale train station , and a taxi from the station to my accommodations. There are car services from Malpensa but I’m pretty nimble and was fine with trains and taxis. I love me a good train ride, and meet such interesting people. More on that later…..

I decided to make the Brera district my base. I had read about various neighborhoods in Milan, and couldn’t visit them all so I chose Brera for its proximity to the city center and for its restaurant, shopping and cultural scenes. I highly recommend it. Brera is an area that doesn’t feel like a concrete jungle. My accommodation was fine for the night. I chose the Brera Boutique apartments in Via San Marco. The location is perfect, and the room is quiet, and self-sufficient. There is no reception desk, concierge, or room service. It is a small suite with a kitchen, living space, and bath - and comes with my favorite accessory: an espresso machine.

Cute room for a short stay at Brera Apartments in Milan.

The afternoon of my Milan stay was spent tracking down a new SIM card for my cellphone. My new-ish phone wasn’t compatible with the WI-FI service in Italy and it is critical for everything - google maps, email, even checking into my hotel. I went old school (since I couldn’t google SIM card on my phone with no internet service) and just asked people on the street and in the cafe’ for the name of the closest store. I found a TIM store about a half-mile away, and got a new SIM card. ALL was well with the world. And the cherry on the Milano sundae is the grace and kindness from the salesperson. We got chatting about the US , and he talked about his upcoming dream vacation to New York. He gave me a huge discount on my SIM card as well as a set of wireless headphones. I can’t tell you how many times I have been the recipient of the generosity of spirit of the Italian people.

I strolled through the Brera neighborhood until it was time for dinner. It wasn’t just raining the first day here. It was a torrential downpour. But, I was so curious about exploring the area that I got over my boo-boo face, bought an umbrella and soldiered on. I’m glad I did.

The gallery and shop windows (le vetrine) tell such a compelling story about a place and the mood they wish to convey.

I wanted to dine on local dishes on my first and only evening in Milan, and had heard about a restaurant called Al Matarel. They are known for their elevated (yet very authentic) Milanese menu. I walked in without a reservation. Bad choice. My charm was not sufficient to get a table….Next time I’ll call ahead. I do recommend it, however, if you find yourself in Brera . Just don’t walk in (especially during Milan Fashion Week). Note to self.

Al Materal   in Via Laura Solera Montegazza.  Milan

I was seriously jet lagged, water-logged and starving by dinner time, so I did find a restaurant close to the hotel. Service was meh. But dinner was great and it had a neighborhood feeling.

What’s better than Risotto alla Milanese, sauteed chickory with peperoncini, and a glass of chilled wine? Nothing.

What to do in a city with so many options as Milan when you have to catch a 4pm train?

I started at a gallery I had heard much about, Pinacoteca di Brera. It was intended by Napoleon Bonaparte to become the Louvre of Italy, and houses amazing works of art, including some of my favorites.

With just a few hours left before my train, I couldn’t leave the city without a return to the Duomo. The cathedral itself is majestic. Beautiful. Awe-inspriring. It’s worth a visit, whether you tour the Duomo (which I didn’t), climb to the terrace for city-wide views (which I was tempted to, but ran out of time), or just marvel at its architecture. My photos don’t do it justice. They are more like a memory of my presence.

Il Duomo, 2024

A trip to Milan would not be complete without some serious people watching. Italians in general have a beautiful sense of style that is in their DNA. People in Milan take it to a whole other level. Maybe it was the fact that it was also Milan Fashion week. Most likely it is simply the way they show up. In any case, when people watching becomes an Olympic Sport, I may win the gold.

I will come back to Milan, for sure. There are so many things to see. Neighborhoods to explore. Foods to try. I hope that you are inspired to take the journey.

ITALY: WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE. part 2

So, in June of 1981 (3 days after my college graduation), I packed up and moved to Italy because…..why not?

I moved in with my then-boyfriend’s family who took me in as if I was their daughter. And thus, one of the reasons why I love Italy to the nth degree. I have had these experiences way too often for them to be one-offs. By that I mean, the Italians’ deep generosity of spirit. There was no stipulation, timeline or rules to for me to follow when living there beyond just being part of their family. Rosetta, the matriarch , cooked for the family every day and every evening . On any given day, there was wife, husband, children, spouses, grandchildren and an American. She made it look so easy and effortless to whip up her specialties. And meals were a time to connect, converse, and sometimes argue. Giovanni, the patriarch, would sometimes break into song at the dinner table. He had an amazing baritone voice, and was proud of his talent. He was larger than life, and deeply religious. I’m a “cafeteria Catholic”, so I couldn’t really appreciate his faith back then. He was one of the kindest men I’ve met in my life.

Me in the early 80's doing dishes after a meal with my adopted Italian family 

After my first summer of working at a local boutique and getting paid sotto banco (under the table), it was time to get serious about working and making a living. I didn’t have working papers so my options seemed limited. That’s when “who you know” became really important. Another reason why I love Italy: there are rules and laws which exist more as suggestions. Giovanni, the family patriarch, was a local politician and knew a Senator from the region who commuted to Rome everyday for his official duties. And the Senator helped me secure a work visa. It may sound easy, but it is extremely difficult for an American to get a visa to work in Italy if you don’t have citizenship, residency , or if you are not married to an Italian. To obtain a visa, a company has to prove that no other Italian could or wants to do the job at hand. I was applying for a job as an interpreter / translator, not as a nuclear physicist. Seriously, many Italians could do my job . My advantage was that English was my first language and gave me a little bit of a leg up. So the Senator had the visa application tailor made to me (English as mother tongue, Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Psychology from an American university, blah-blah-blah). Short story, I obtained a coveted visa that allowed me to work and be part of the system. And I was fortunate to be gainfully employed for several years. I made the handsome salary of 1 million lire a month. …..which was about $500 .

I would love to say that my years in Italy were spent jet setting to Portofino and drinking Negronis across from the Colosseum, but really my life was about working , paying bills, and just living. I remember being in awe of the sights all around me - wherever I went. It was in the mundane that its beauty captivated me. Like having a simple coffee downtown and looking up at the Castello Malaspina, an 11th century castle, serving as my backdrop. Or looking at the the perfectly lined beach chairs and cabanas in the posh beach town of Forte dei Marmi . It was like a constant scene from La Dolce Vita. Or travelling beyond the region to breathtaking towns - from Venice to Florence , Rome, and Amalfi. I found a deep connection to the natural beauty at every turn. That awe is still with me today. And there are so many places to experience in Italy, I will die someday not having seen all of them.

Castello Malaspina in Massa-Carrara.  

Cabanas and beach chairs in Forte dei Marmi

Venice , 1985

Amalfi, mid-1980s

I also loved (unless there is a stronger word than loved) the food. I literally ate pasta every single day for years. And I realized quickly that Italian food is not chicken parm and spaghetti with meatballs (staples in our Italian-American household). It was more nuanced than that. Differences are not only regional (seafood along the coast, rabbit and boar in the mountains, pesto in Liguria, etc), but also differ from one family to the next. The unifier is that food is grown and served close to the source. One of my favorite memories was on vacation to my ancestral home in Santarcangelo di Romagna years after I moved back to the States, and having lunch with my dear cousin , Checco. My husband , older daughter and I had been visiting him and his family and were going to leave the next day. So Checco wanted to make sure we were well prepared for our journey. That meant loading us up with food. He could have gone to the local store, bought some sandwiches and sent us packing, which would have been an incredibly thoughtful gesture. Instead, Checco and his wife Luisa made us piadine. Lots of them. Piadina is a specialty of Emilia-Romagna, and it’s a type of round flat bread that resembles pita, that is then stuffed like a sandwich. Piadina is also ubiquitous in Santarcangelo and the surrounding areas. So Mark, Mia and I went on a trip with him in his little Fiat to get the ingredients. That meant going to his friend who owned a mill that grinded the wheat into flour. And then to another friend , a butcher, who supplied him with prosciutto. We got all the ingredients and Checco and Luisa whipped up about 10 piadine to send us on our way. Beyond this simple and heartwarming gesture was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in Italy.

Checco and Luisa making piadina

I lived and worked in Italy for close to 5 years before moving back to the States. I had this feeling that if I stayed there much longer I’d never be able to move back home again, because I would have become a foreigner in my own country. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Maybe you can always go home. Maybe home is wherever you are.

But Italy has always remained my North Star. The U.S. is where my home is. But Italy is where my soul resides. I continue to go back time and time again. I have spent major milestones in Italy - my honeymoon , my daughter’s graduation from school in Florence, friends’ weddings. I have also returned there to heal. I had a mid-life crisis-breakdown-depression years back, and Italy embraced me back to health and happiness. Now I go back for fun, exploration and piadina.

I launched Noble Peasant Travels to share this deep passion I have for Italy. Travel has the power to inspire, transform and heal. Travel to Italy is , for me, the key to unlock this power. Buon viaggio!

ITALY: WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE. part 1

I have been having a passionate, all-consuming love affair with Italy since….forever.

I was born into a tight-knit Italian-American family. We spent most of our free time with my grandparents, Italian immigrant Italian great-grandparents and a ton of relatives in the North End of Portsmouth, NH. Sundays , holidays, and milestones were spent at their kitchen table with food (amazing), conversation (loud), and stories (fascinating) of the old country. Some of my cousins and uncles had just immigrated to the States from Italy , and they were my favorite humans. I loved their broken English, their kind and generous spirit, and their whole-hearted laugh. I felt connected to Italy and to my heritage before I ever stepped foot on its soil.

My Italian-American family. I’m not in the photo but the rest of the “clan” is there, including my great-grandparents, Tito and Pia Zoffoli, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

Fast forward to a summer job that would change the direction of my life. I was just starting my junior year at the University of New Hampshire, studying Psychology, and one Friday night I met someone at Scorpio’s Bar (no judgment, please ) and he told me about this work study program he had just done in Europe. He explained that there were jobs all throughout Europe. I got right on it, found a job opening in a small town in coastal Tuscany, named Marina di Massa. There was this little B&B there named Pensione Marina, and they were looking for English speakers to greet the non Italian-speaking guests (Marina di Massa is in an area known as Versilia, where British, Germans, and Swiss flock to in the summer). I applied and was accepted. I just needed to learn Italian between the fall and the summer when the job would start . While Italian was spoken by my grandparents, aunts and uncles, it was never taught to my generation. I loved my university Italian classes. Being the perfectionist I am, I was the strongest student in my class, got a 4.0 in all the Italian language classes I could take, and felt so ready for the summer and my new job.

It was June, 1980, and it feels like yesterday. I got off the plane in Paris and took the train all the way to Carrara, and then a taxi to the Pensione. I got out of the car and was greeted by the owner and didn’t understand a freaking word he said. I hadn’t realized the HUGE difference between speaking Italian in class where…the…professor….speaks….so….slowly………..and the way that Italians actual speak. Like getting shot out of a cannon!!!!! It wasn’t the best job in the world. In fact, the owner was a self-professed Nazi sympathizer, and had fought with the Germans in WWII. The room I was given was in a makeshift shed about the size of a chicken coop. But I fell in love . First , with the language. By the time the summer was over, I was fluent and I loved the melody and sound of Italian. Still do. I also loved the area. I was close to the beach, and when I looked up from the pier, I could see the mountains in the opposite direction. At first, I thought they were covered in snow. But I soon found out it was actually marble . That beautiful white Carrara marble comes from those quarries.

Forte dei Marmi

I also explored the area during that first summer job. Forte dei Marmi was about 5 miles from my job. It was (and is) an upscale summer beach town. Rumor has it Giorgio Armani has a villa with a private underground passage to his private beach . And Andrea Bocelli has a summer residence there as well. And I saw Luciano Pavarotti perform in Forte dei Marmi at the Capannina. Further down was Viareggio, and I went there often my first summer. Bigger than Forte dei Marmi, it was known for its expansive beaches, designer stores and a promenade that would go on for miles . I also fell in love with an Italian boy and his family who took me in as their own daughter . By the end of the summer, I knew I had to return home to finish my degree. But I realized that my path was not back in the New Hampshire. It was in Italy.

Upon my return from my Italian summer, I announced to my family that I was going to Italy to live after graduation. When asked what I was going to do for work, I responded “I don’t know.” And when they asked me how long I was going for , I responded “I don’t that either.” But it didn’t matter to a 21 year-old with not enough life experiences to be afraid. I just knew it was going to be my new home……