Lago di Como

Lake Como and the surrounding town area are a peaceful, tranquil area about an hour north of Milan. In the summer, the area would be filled with greenery and clear blue skies, and it might be easier then to see why Lake Como has been called one of the most beautiful in Italy.

It has long been home to a variety of cultural and artistic gems, and numerous villas that are open in the summer, unfortunately closed for the winter. It is also popular with celebrity homes for the likes of Madonna, George Clooney and Sylvester Stallone.

(I did try stalking the celebs. It failed pretty miserably.)



Built on the shores of the lake, the town of Como has a very personal charm that distinguishes itself from the rest of Italy. The houses are clean, small and quaint, the people chirpy. It is, the words of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, a "small provincial town."





It helps that I finally had my first taste of Italian gelato in this small little town, too. Strawberry and pistachio gelato, for those of you who are wondering - and boy oh boy dessert has never tasted this good. Apart from maybe sticky toffee pudding.



With plenty of parks and outdoor spaces, I'm sure Lago di Como would have been a beautiful place to visit in the summer. This was winter - cold, drab, grey and overcast with cloud, but past all that it's easy to see how it might be an idyllic setting for some.

Opposite sides of the lake have developed very differently - one side full of buildings and townspeople, the other quietly residential. It is so small that the town could easily be explored on foot on a day trip, or to take a boat upstream to the town of Bellagio.



Lago di Como acquires a different sort of charm in the winter, but if you really want to get out and about seeing things, it would be best to come back in summer when the villas are open and it's warm enough for flowers. Either way, it's a pretty little area that's well worth seeing.

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Teatro della Scala

For a music geek, visiting the La Scala in Milan is a dream come true. The only thing better than this would have been to be able to see a performance at La Scala, but given that the only things that were playing then were ballets, I reckon visiting the Museo Teatrale della Scala was a decent enough compromise.

I apologise in advance for the really poor image quality - photos weren't allowed inside so I couldn't whip out my Canon 550D, and I had to make do with my iPhone to sneak a few!

Franz Liszt's real piano.

I was standing so close to Franz Liszt's piano! To think that such a great composer once played on this instrument, it's incredible - I'm starstruck. And not only that; Giuseppe Verdi's piano was there too!

Giuseppe Verdi's piano.

The second floor of the museum contains a small section on the ballets that have taken place at La Scala - while La Scala is better known as a performance venue for operas than ballets, nonetheless there have been some pretty spectacular ballets that have been performed here. Nureyev, the great Russian dancer, once danced in these very halls.

Ballet costumes, I can't remember from which production. Look at the detail in design!

This is one helluva gorgeous tutu skirt.

A painting of Maria Callas, opera diva divine.

Maria Callas has to be one of the world's favourite sopranos ever to have lived: her performance of Casta Diva for Bellini's Norma was beyond compare, and her voice was so colourful and agile there was quite simply nothing like it.

Busts of Rossini and Beethoven.

Franz Liszt's piano, carefully placed beyond the reach of museum visitors.

One of the incredible things about Liszt's piano, I thought, was that it's still used even today as a playable instrument on special occasions! Whoever gets to play on that thing is ridiculously lucky.

Or probably just extremely well-trained and who has been playing piano 8 hours a day for the past 20 years. The amount of work that goes into performing well is something I don't think many people appreciate - you only ever see the final work, the polished finished product, but unless you go behind the scenes and see rehearsals a person will never understand how difficult it is to make it look easy.

An original La Scala poster for Verdi's Aida.

As far as I'm concerned, this was the best use of €6 that ever went into a museum! I don't suppose it will be of terrible interest to a person who isn't quite as into classical music, but for me this was the perfect way to spend a good morning.

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Milan in a nutshell

Milan, fashion powerhouse of Italy. Hell, fashion powerhouse of the world. Home to many of the greatest names in the scenes of art and fashion.

Also, a place I feel very conflicted about.

See, I loved Italy before I'd even ever stepped foot in it. I've always wanted to learn Italian - I know a wee bit of French now, but if I'd had the option to do language classes in Italian at my school I would have. I want to learn Italian more than French, a lot of the reason being that a lot of musical direction is written in Italian.

That, and you, know, pizza.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I liked Milan much. Apart from my horrible New Year's experience, Milan I felt was overrated. Perhaps it's just because Milan isn't meant to be a city best enjoyed in winter, or because I was there over New Year's and nothing was open, really. I don't really know, but I don't think it's a place I would go back to again.

To its credit, Milan is stunningly beautiful. The architecture is old and glorious; the city breathes with a vibe that doesn't shy away from its pride of being such an important city. It's got the world's oldest shopping mall, the Galleria Vittorio de Emanuele II, which is beautiful and looks like something out of a dream. Stunning, high ceilings, high-end designer names.



So I don't know why I didn't like Milan as much as I should have. Perhaps it's because I wasn't used to the smokers, who were absolutely everywhere - literally, people lighting up around every corner. That's one thing I am sure I didn't like, because it made the air unbreathable.

I don't like smoking. I never have, and I doubt I ever will. I don't have a problem with smokers, as long as they keep their smoke out of my face. I don't like the smell of smoke and how it stays on your clothes. Which is why Milan was difficult, because it was impossible not to walk into clouds of smoke.

I will say this, though - the Duomo di Milano was one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever walked into. I've walked into a lot of churches by now (this is Europe, after all, and churches kinda represent the pinnacle of human ability with stunning art and architecture) and I'm still going to say the Duomo is pretty high up on my list of favourite churches.



The Duomo is an imposing building - it took over 500 years to build, and it's easy to see why. The carving is ornate, the stained glass intricate, and don't even get me started on the sheer size of this building. A pinnacle of Gothic architecture, the Duomo is the fifth-largest cathedral in the world (thank you Wikipedia) and contains the largest pipe organ in all of Italy.

It made me realise how wondrous human people are, and marvel at their ability to produce something of this magnitude. I was temporarily put into a Doctor-like state of wonder and respect for humankind :p



It's supposed to be a thing to walk up to the top of Duomo (or take a lift, if you so prefer) and take in the Milan panorama from there, but it was a cold wet and rainy day so I skipped it.

The Duomo is such a fascinating building - it's even got the sarcophagi of two archbishops on display, where people can buy and light candles and pray to them, with a third sarcophagus in the catacombs. It's fascinating in a mildly morbid way.



The Navigli District is like a mini-version of Venice - a beautiful canal and bridges that cross it. Illuminated by streetlamps after dark, it's the perfect place to grab the famous Milanese aperitivo - where you can pay for a drink for only €5-€9, and get a free buffet thrown in with the deal. It's the perfect way to fill up your belly on a budget, while enjoying a uniquely Milanese experience.



So I suppose while Milan wasn't everything I thought it would be, it had its high points.

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New Year's in Milan

Milan at new year's wasn't quite as spectacular as I'd hoped it would be. After years of magazines painting a spectacular haute couture image of Milan, I expected things to turn out magnificent - a bright, cheery version of Zoukout at the Piazza del Duomo with fireworks and things going off in the backdrop - but instead the reality was terrifying.

Not for the reasons that you would expect, for a tourist; while most people would be terrified of things like pickpockets, I can safely say I was careful enough that even amidst the crowds I didn't really ever fear my stuff going missing. No, what I was afraid of were the firecrackers.

Lots and lots of firecrackers.

They went off like landmines, bursting out into loud noises and sparklers when you least expected them; every step became a trepidation trying to stay out of the firing line. Everyone was throwing them, kids and rowdy teenagers, even a few adults.

Clearly, my experience growing up in safe, firecracker-illegal Singapore showed, because my German roommates who had tagged along (to whom the firecrackers didn't seem much of an anomaly) were extremely amused by how I was ducking, screaming, and jumping at every burst.

The space at the piazza was crowded - there were people everywhere, turned out in throngs to celebrate the new year. It was also cold, as I'd expected Milan to be; nothing I can't handle after living in Scotland for four months, but that didn't stop it from getting through to my skin.

Some were trying to hide from the cold in the shelter of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world's first ever purpose-built shopping malls. But with massive arching doorways stretching three storeys high at either end, it seemed that this channelled cold air through the streets rather than sheltering us from it.



In the end, frightened cold and miserable, I said goodbye to my German roommates, gave up on my idea of a fabulous new year's and left to go back to the hostel I was staying at, where it would be at the very least warmer.

Even back at Ostell Olinda, I didn't get much respite from the firecrackers; people were still setting off firecrackers as I walked back to my bunk bed.

If I said that I enjoyed my first night in Milan, I would be blatantly lying. It was not one of my favourite travel experiences, and it was a shocking first taste of the famously loud and articulate Italian culture. I'm struggling to find anything good that I've learned out of this experience, except maybe that I'm more certain now than ever that crowds really aren't my thing.

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