tbaroundtheworld

We spent our last night in Navigli, a trendy restaurant area on the south side of Milan. Meaning “navigation” in Italian, dating to the 13 th century, the five canals were the chief method of brining goods into the city from the region. It is said that all the marble that went into the host of churches came to the city via barges on the Navigli. Use continued until the 1970s when the very last load of sand was delivered. Originally intended as an irrigation source, today that is its sole purpose. These days there are hundreds of little restaurants, fancy and fast food along the main canal. The left side tends towards the trendy, attracting young people for happy hour, the right side, expensive, elegant restaurants. The streets leading down to the water are lined with bars and fast food take out places. It is almost impossible to navigate those streets without smoking what seems like a hundred cigarettes. From our apartment, it was no more than 20 minutes by Metro and only involve...

Last night we made one last pass through the Milan guidebook, trying to decide if there were any more critical spots to visit. Places that would cause abject regret upon discovering that we were so close yet so far. There are few things worse in life than chatting with someone about some place you’ve visited and having them say, “Oh, you didn’t find the time to go there ?” MLW and I are hard-core street pounding mega-travelers. We think nothing about walking 10 miles in a day and covering 23 centuries in history, from Celtic tribes to Frank Gehry. It’s what we do. I will however admit when it’s 78 degrees and a bit on the humid side and the sun is straight up over your head in these Baroque canyons, we get a bit weary. On this trip, we’ve been stuffing the mornings and taking a midday break before going out around dinner time. It’s been working for us and it’s allowed me to develop a nice relationship with the food truck guy around the block. Well, as it turned out there were two ...

I didn’t get a chance to write about dinner last night, it was late when we got in and I was in mood to stay up sitting in front of the computer. We went to a restaurant on Via Brera and chose the place where we’d had a nice chat with the owner the night before. He remembered us and was grateful that we had made good on our promise to return. We took a table inside, away from the smokers and ordered. Specific wines by the glass was a nice change after several nights of “house wine,” MLW had Sea Bass with roasted potatoes, I had veal with mushrooms. A very dinner, made better by the service and the atmosphere. The waiter wouldn’t let me leave without a grappa, after which we paid and made our way to the door. The owner, his partner and our waiter stood in a line and thanked us for our patronage, shaking our hands. What a nice touch, a genuine response when we all know it’s unlikely we’ll ever be back. On the way home I found a 5€ note on the sidewalk, and seeing that as an omen, I quic...

The area around Como has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age. A Celtic tribe known (to the Romans) as the Orobii had small settlements in the woods around the present city. It came under the control of the Romans in the 1 st century BC, and the town center was moved and consolidated on its present location by order of Julius Caesar. The swampy southern tip of the lake was drained, and a traditional Roman grid was imposed. The town was named Novum Comum. Its fortunes ebbed with the fall of the Roman Empire and it was captured in 774 by Charlemagne who turned it into a commercial center for the region. 400 years later it was on the losing end of a long war with Milan, but that setback was overcome in 1162 when Frederic I Barbarossa destroyed Milan. He rebuilt the city’s fortifications, some of which remain today on the south side of the old city center. From then on, Como’s importance waned as it came more and more under the control of Milan, and followed its history of co...