2017 September 8-10 Milan, Italy

Milan was hosting its first event in a dance genre I like, during my birthday weekend, seemed like a perfect fit. The forecast was rain with some more rain, so I checked out a few rainy day lists of Milan (e.g. this one) while planning.

Just the pictures, if you have no patience for reading :)

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FRIDAY, 08. September: getting in, cocktail contest, fancy storefronts and gelato 

I flew into Milan Linate airport (LIN), the closest of the 2-3 options you have (the other "Bergamo" is quite far away), maybe 7km from the city center. There are 3-5 various shuttle services to the main train station in the city. Only one has set up shop by the baggage carousel, so I bought my ticket from them, but clearly they are designed to be staggered so that you can always grab one whenever you need. From the bus, it reminded me of Barcelona. Walking around, a mix of that and Paris.

Once at the main train station, you should enjoy the architecture


then buy yourself a day ticket for the metro maybe (worth it if you are going to travel at least 3 times in 24 hrs -- unlike Germany, the day pass is good for exactly 24 hours from the first time you use it, and will cost about 4.50 EUR) from one of the tabacco stores in the station for the metro, given the professional beggars seem to hang around the ticket machines trying to "help" confused tourists (for a fee of course).

I took the metro to my lodgings, about 2 stops away near the Porto Garibaldi. This was the first scene to meet my eyes, and belied a sort of (astonishing to me) trend in Milan I saw -- of people having full grown trees, almost mini-forests, on their balconies.

Forest-balconies near the train station

Once I got in, I got the keys for  my swank apartment-lodgings (not airbnb, booking dot com, but clearly an apartment no one has ever lived in (no knives!)):




I popped around the corner to ESSELUNGA, a fancy-to-me but reasonably-priced grocery store, where, among other things, I bought an amazing salad for less than 3 EUR (chicken breast meat, some interesting greens, fresh tomatoes).

I then set out to augment my dinner with some gelato and exploration, given that Milan is a town known for fashion, in a country that is king of gelato-flavors, imo.

First Gelato location. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the insides. It's a chocolate shop cum retro copper/brassy bar. Delighful. I forget the flavors (it's been a few weeks now...), but they were incredible.

om nom nom

A++ would eat there again. Every day. :)

Walking down corso cuomo (fancy shopping street with also lots of restaurants, it passes through/by this lovely arch.

to the left of it is EATALY, cooking-school cum fancy restaurant

I stopped in for EATALY's cocktail competition (rained out the next day, otherwise would have gone back)

menu of interesting cocktails to be vo

I had a bizarro margarita. Server on the left, margarita middle, trendy crowd to the right:



I asked another guy nearby if it's legal to just drink while walking around (note: not legal in Romania, but fine in Germany, so figured worth checking). Dude said yes, definitely, and winked at me.

I walked, drinking, and had another gelato.

om nom

My walk, down corso cuomo/what it becomes was along a lot of darkened storefronts. Very trendy and well put-together.

                     

winter is coming, eh? 

Intermingled with this was a variety of graffiti.

I really liked this kitchen:

Returning northwards along the street, through the gate/arch:

PRO-TIP: Italians, like French and Spaniards, start dinner around 9pm. An affordable, earlier option is to buy an apertif-plus-buffet (around 7-12 Euros), tends to run 5/6pm to 9pm. 

Sign advertising Apertif + buffet for 7 Euros

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SATURDAY, 09. September: 10 corso cuomo, castle, Canal district. __________

I'd read that the b&b/café/store 10 corso como (that's the address) was a must-see, so popped in en-route to the castle.

Went to and through the courtyard of the Castle Sforzeco. Didn't go up on the ramparts or anything.

Lunch was nearby at a place that served an inside-out salmon salad. The food was ok.

Was impressed by a pharmacy with a vending machine. Tampons, bandaids, anti-blister care, condoms and pregnancy tests. They had everything!



After lunch and gelato, there was wondering down to the uni area, then the Navigli Canal district, which is pretty hip.

Stopped for another snack at an amazing bakery (Il Forno dei Navigli):

those are canneloni with pistachios in the background

As the rain started, but before it turned to pouring, found a prosciuteria (La Prosciutteria Navigli) 

interior

that had an amazing "gourmet board" we split along with some wine.  Great dinner, great view.

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SUNDAY, 10. September: the Duomo  

Voila

Bought tickets online beforehand (PRO TIP, great idea, you also get a "skip the line" option). 

The most interesting part of the church (included in our deluxe skip-the-line tickets) was by far the archeological area. There was a baptistry built in 370 or so, torn down a thousand years later to build the church. The remnants of the floor of the baptistry and its pool are on display. Pretty cool.



The church ticket includes entry to the Church Museum, which is stuff they've had to take down for preservation reasons. Interesting to get up close and personal with stuff you're supposed to see from afar.



St. Agnes had some weird hands and feet:



They also had a nice wooden model of the dome, showing you where the various statues are:

like this dude

Near the dome is a super-fancy shopping mall area.

After the church and museum, wanted food and warmth and asked Yelp for a nearby resto reccommendation. Was not disappointed. Ended up at Salsamenteria di Parma. They are a bit quirky, serving (sparkling red) wine in bowls (like our forefathers!) which we had, as well as a nice platter.




After lunch, hiding from the rain, found a weird dimly-lit side corridor that clearly used to abut something, since lots of famous people signed the concrete there:



To finish up the wandering-around photos, here's a cute street around Milan:

Sunday dinner local, on corso cuomo at Alla Cucina della Langhe. The salad portion of the menu:

What we ate:


Flew out very early from Milan the next day.

2017 August 18-21: Bucharest, Romania for a wedding (Weekend trip)

In May or so, with the ink drying on my freshly-signed contract in my new job in industry -- to start in August -- my friend and former co-postdoc in Münster, Martin, had invited me and several other mutual friends to his wedding -- planned for the weekend of August 20th. Knowing already I would be working then, I planned everything immediately, with a post-work flight Friday (arriving at the hotel by 10pm)  and very-early-morning flight on Monday back (about 8am). Thankfully, another friend decided to also come along, and I had someone to split the hotel with and also pal around town with.

Friday, 18. August: Arrival, incongruous giant posh Bookstore
I did some in-flight reading to get me up to speed on Romania. It seems like Bucharest is growing in hip-ness, and known for a bizarre mix of architecture and good food. Many tourists skip town to go check out Dracula's castle.

I stayed downtown at Capitol Hotel, one block down from the wedding-reception (Sunday 16 to whenever), and the rate was 70 Euros/night for two people (bargain!). Sunday I relocated to a hotel literally across the street from the Airport for my peace of mind in getting to the airport for my 8am flight.

View from hotel room

 
I was worried I wouldn't have time to get any local currency (denoted ROM, but called "lei" (1leu, multiple lei), I'd booked a transfer from the airport to be paid in Euros. Turns out I paid twice as much as I would've with a taxi. Exchange rate is roughly 5 ROM to 1 EUR/GBP/USD at the moment.

PRO TIP: There is a taxi-calling "machine" at the airport, outside. Tell it roughly where you're going, it'll suggest a rate, you say yes, and generally you pay about 30 cents/km, should run you less than 10 Euros from airport to town center.

Getting in, went for a stroll along Lipscani, the semi-gritty club-ish hip etc street which people are surprised was not torn down as part of the communist-era widespread destruction of Romanian historical things.

Went to a very incongruous fancy 6 story tall bookstore (might have needed some wrapping for the wedding present) in that area, open til midnight. The internet tells me it's famous ( bored panda)?  (Here is the actual website of the bookstore)

Bookstore was full of German tourists, btw

Saturday, 19. August: Legal wedding, Open-air museum, Dinner

(1)Legal wedding, walk to/from: 

At some point Friday, we were invited to the legal part of the wedding at the wedding registry. A nice 1 hr walk from the hotel.

Couple and their parents

The ceremony was in Romanian, with an interpreter -- which is legally required if one spouse cannot demonstrate perfect Romanian fluency (I approve).

There was a photographer, but one only pays if one wants the pictures, so I didn't feel too terrible about my tourist get-up. :)

Part of the thing was to throw rice at the happy couple as they exited. Some people threw other things, previously.And once all the pictures were taken, this woman dutifully cleaned it all up:

 On our walk to the registry, we got a taste of Bucharest scenery (in 31-35C heat (35C=95F)):

We got a good sampling of the architecture on our walk, and the mixture of just-built and formerly-decadent but-now-run-down vibe, in addition to some communist-era monstrosities (more on that later):

mix of all the architecture around (communist, art nouveau/beginning 1900s, modern glass-front),

A few more pics from our walks:

Art Nouveau style building

more Art Nouveau

Monument for dead in Revolution (heart on stick)

One of many tiny churches amidst everything

It was asserted that this arch could pass for the Arc du Triumph. I countered it was too small. You guys are welcome to weigh in on this of course.

an arch

(2) After the wedding, we had a long, nice lunch with the other guests at a restaurant in a park. In the same rather large park is also an open-air museum.

Called the "Village Museum", much like the analogous thing I saw in Aarhus (Den Gamle By), but it seems the Romanian stuff isn't generally quite as old, and is very different construction, generally coming from remote mountain villages from what I read.

Some snapshots of what we saw there:





 On the walk back to the hotel, we took a totally different, semi-meandering route, stopping in at a pharmacy for antihistamines for my companion. I have a fair amount of experience picking which words one should use in situations like this (e.g. say "allergies", not "hay fever", especially given that's from French, i.e. probably closer to Romanian) and the pharmacist spoke to us in Romanian. I worked out what it was from context -- so, the stuff we'd asked for (google-translate and holding up the phone of the name of the stuff) isn't there, but they have Claritin (pronounced with a long "i"). I said yes, that, and we were on our way. I also picked up some nice hand-lotion of Greek origin, with beeswax in it -- I learned from Elementary that doctors often use wax-based handcream for their constant nitrile-glove-changing habits.

Along the way we also got some totally rad gelato at a place that also had a counter of middle-eastern foods like hummus.

(3) I suggested dinner at a place rated top 10 for mixed drinks in Romania

On the way there, we passed what looked like a sort of unadvertised hip club thing.


And also this total hipster coffee place:

We don't need to actually use our cups

The place we had dinner was called Energiea  (location). Hip, and we scored a nice table outside. Dinner was a tasty salad(Maybe 10 Euros ~45-50 ROM?) and a cocktail (25 ROM ~ 5 Euros for the cocktail).

Cocktail Menu. I had the "All the Wine"

Sunday 20. August: Palace of Parliament, wedding

Sunday we had time to be tourists in the morning before the wedding (at 14:30) and the reception (16:00 until...). I suggested the monstrous Palace of Parliament, symbol of the excesses of the former communist era.

On the walk there, ran into my second Rome-referencing statue.

nice doggy

What the Romanian-based travel websites have to say about the Palace of Parliament:

"At the border of reason, kitsch and neoclassicism, the building reflects best what Romania underwent in the communist period. Built in a time when the people of Romania have been destitute, it has been regarded with reticence.
Many workers have lost their lives on the site in their attempt to contribute to the construction of this architectural colossus – the world’s second largest administrative building after the Pentagon. 

[...Under the false pretext of the 77’s earthquake, about 7 km (~4.3 miles) worth of buildings from the Old City Center have been demolished. 44,000 people have been relocated. A series of important buildings have been demolished, without any care of the patrimony or their architectural value."

first view of said palace

We walked there (15 minutes or so?) and discovered we needed our passports to go on a tour. We decided to reserve a our and hot-foot it back to the hotel, grab our passports, and grab a cab. We couldn't get a cab to take us there -- it was too close! -- and by the time this was figured out, we'd missed our tour. No worries, we thought, we'll go back and get the next one, that's not as expansive. When we got there, we were told it had been booked out.

me and the palace I didn't get to check out.

Instead, we went for a slow walk and for lunch in the old town.
Leading away from the palace is the clear Romanian version of the Champs-Elysee
. Pictures from our walk along it (it ends in the big fountain):







Past the fountain was the river/canal:

canal

Ah. A diversion about rivers. It is clear from the picture of Bucharest that it used to have a river, and it doesn't anymore per se. It's now become a bunch of "lakes".

 See:



Past the canal, we saw a few more things, like our friend Vlad.

Vlad

And had lunch at a cabaret? Well, it was in the old town and had misters and shade, which was about all I really needed. Plus reasonably fast service, since we were running a little low on time.

I had the salad Bordello-aise

The wedding itself was in a cute old (Russian) orthodox Church, with maybe 6 chairs (clearly only for the elderly/disabled):

they were renovating

very pretty interior

After the wedding, we walked to the hotel for the reception and the 7-course meal, which started with two chocolate fountains (one dark, because Martin is lactose intolerant) and then a little meat-and-cheese setup that was tasty. We ended up at the non-Romanian and not-related-to-the-couple table ;), which we called the "international" table (or Chris called the "party table").  Most of the guests were Mathematicians (especially the Romanians), and the non-mathematicians were still scientists (there were two chemists and two something elses -- people in the same "house"/college as the groom back in his Oxford days).

The format was:
Food
Something (Dancing)
Food
Something else (Speeches and musical performances by Groom, Bride, Groom's brother, Bride's mother (piano teacher!)
Food
Something ("the bride is kidnapped!" -- the groom has to do silly things as "ransom")
Food
etc.

I highly approve. Much better than (FOOD) then (go dance, you stuffed people). :) 

I had to head out around midnight, around course 5 or 6, managed to grab a little dessert before leaving.  The meat course:

I got to the next hotel around 1am. The cab driver asked me why I had come to Romania (for a friend's wedding), if I had a boyfriend/why I hadn't brought him, and told me Germans were very discouraging/unhelpful when he visited Germany, telling him (in German) to speak German. I suggested to him that France would be worse, although he might have an easier time because the language (written, at least) is closer to Romanian. 

My last view (walking to the airport) before leaving town: 

the airport

PRO-TIP: There is more than one check-in area. At 6am on a Monday there was a huuuuuuge line for Security. I went looking around, found a line for a "faster" security, and it was, indeed, much faster. It was kind of left/back as you enter. 

Final thoughts:

Romania is awesome value-for money--- fancy cocktails for 5 EUR/USD, Cabs at 30cents/Km, great food at reasonable prices, lots and lots of museums, pretty architecture intermingled with communist-era stuff that still had a fair amount of windows.  

I think Bucharest is worth a look-see, and, like Athens, something you could take a few days onto when traveling into the countryside if you want to go hiking or looking at castles.