18 Blog Post September 21, 2024 “Milan”

Buckle your seat belts! We are not in Kansas anymore! Wow! Milan is an entirely different world than any part of the UK where we have spent time. It’s kind of like that scene in the Wizard of Oz in the middle of the movie when the door to Dorothy’s farmhouse opens and all of a sudden everything is in color.

First of all our hotel room in Milan is exactly the opposite of our techno-closet in London. Not only is it lovely and roomy, but we have a private balcony and two sets of French doors that can be opened so we can look over the street from our room. And our balcony has lovely deep red mandevilla, or rock trumpet flowers, growing and spilling over the edges. These are exactly the flowers I was trying to grow on my porch in Johnstown! In any case, this is an upscale hotel with a traditional feel to it. We were also told the bar downstairs is open 24 hours a day. That should have been a clue about this city.

Milan is a walkable city. We covered quite a lot of it tonight on our quest to find a good dinner, and did we ever find a good dinner! Oh my. More on that later. We wanted to be sure we knew how to get to the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in order to see the Last Supper tomorrow morning. It’s about 20 minutes from our hotel, so we found it easily, and then we kept walking, wandering through the Castle of Nilan which is in the center of the city.

By the way—do you know the poster about the Georgian doors of Dublin? 12 photos of unique doors on the city are featured, but someone should have told them about the Doors of Milan!! The front doors of many traditional establishments and homes feature these massive wood doors—I’m talking about 30 foot doors made of solid wood and brass. They are ornate and beautiful and enormous, all at the same time. Photos below.

But now I need to talk about the people, the beautiful people, who are young, fashionable and walk with confidence like they are always on a runway, and maybe they should be! I have never seen a city so full of cutting edge fashion for people of all ages, all genders. And everyone smelled so good! This whole city smells like it is wearing the most expensive cologne. I know I sound like I have been living in a cave when I say things like this, but truly, the fashion watching here on an average day is world class. I can finally pull out all the skirts and jewelry I have been carting around the UK and wear it, but I will still look like a country farmer compared to these willowy, confident women. And it wasn’t just the young ones who paraded their fashion—women my age wore red heels and silk suits with matching shorts that were dressy and sassy at the same time.

Then our meal, served al fresco as we sat outside in the courtyard of Rosso Bresca, about a 30 minute walk from our hotel nestled in a cobblestone courtyard where once again, tradition met modernity. Warm bread, olive oil swirled on a plate, then house made hummus with shaved vegetables on top and our mains, chosen from the second course menu (all four courses of a true Italian meal were on the menu). Alistair had meatballs and sauce—no pasta! That was a surprise, but the second course did not include pasta. We had extra bread, though, and that was just right.

My meal was a silky, buttery bowl of panciotti (round ravioli) with hand made pasta. They were perfectly stuffed with a variety of local seafood and topped with the tiniest black fish eggs. To eat one of these pillowy creations was to taste all of the sea at once. Paired with a glass of wine (yes, I should have white wine with fish, but my peasant tendencies prefer red with all foods), I felt as though I was dreaming.

Milan comes to life at night. Restaurants only start serving dinner at 7 pm—in fact most open at 7 and they are open until midnight, serving food, wine and a rich social life to the people of Milan.

We stopped for gelato on the way home. Alistair had lemon sorbet and I had some a Nutella based gelato that was so rich I had to throw it away without finishing it—a first for this trip! But our travel agent told us to have gelato every night, so I’ll keep trying new places as we travel through Italy, never fear, and I will continue to assess which I think is the best.

So here it is—I loved the wind-swept beauty and emptiness of the Isle of Mull, as you know, but my heart clearly beats with Italian blood and this place warmed me up. I could not stop smiling as we ate our dinner. The conversations felt familiar even though I still don’t speak the language, and I had the strange sense of being home. Alistair could see it in my face as I sat across from him. Yes, I do feel like an outsider too, especially because my sense of fashion tends toward Adirondack hiker wear and not the svelte cuts and exquisite fabrics of the people around me, men and women alike—plus everyone is thin here. I don’t know if they are fit, but they are thin and these clothes hang on them perfectly. That certainly sets me apart.

But this sabbatical is supposed to help me find my sense of home as I travel. It was never intended to be just a vacation, and on this first day in Italy, something grounds me here. We have an entire month to explore all this—we leave for Greece on October 21, and Alistair said he can feel the faster pace of our days that will make the days fly by. I referred to it as the beginning of the ride down the ski slope because I, too, feel the trajectory of our trip beginning to speed up.

Tomorrow we will see the Last Supper fresco, painted by Leonardo DaVinci, and we will tour the Duomo, the Cathedral of Milan, which took six centuries to build and which is the third largest Cathedral in the world. Once again we will climb up a series of steps to the roof of this Cathedral as well, which is always one of my favorite things to do. The view from the top must be surpassing. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

Meanwhile, outside our French doors at 11 pm, cars race by, music plays, young voices call to each other and restaurants are still serving dinner while we tuck in to go to sleep. I can’t say I’m nourished by all this yet, but I can tell you that my appetite and my curiosity about this country and her people have increased since we arrived. What is this affinity I feel and the connection I hope to make with my own history on my father’s side? God will continue to guide us as we travel and as I search. While my true home is found wherever God sends me, I am so glad that Italy is part of where I have been both led and sent.

May you remember the home where you feel most nourished.
ML+