Market Day in Milan

Call it bad timing, but on the morning of the day we flew home from Milan this market popped up on the street opposite our apartment. It snaked through several streets selling fruit and vegetables of all kinds. You want courgette? Take your pick from a bounty of varieties; dark green, light green, yellow or striped. There were tomatoes of every size and shade of red through to orange, yellow and purple. There were mountains of oranges and citrus fruit sold as cheap as chips, just crying out to be made into marmalade. If only we could have stayed a little longer. I would have filled my boots. I did however fill my hand luggage with blood oranges, lemons and podded peas, which were the kids Milan snack of choice.

Milano

 

 

April is Milan month for us. We David goes out there for work: the spectacular Milan Furniture Fair - a must for anyone in our industry. It's like 'Fashion Week' for furniture and it sprawls the city with design districts here, there and everywhere to explore. 

However when we do Milan, we do it en famille, so I see very little of the design as I have the kids to amuse. I bribe them with Gelato in order to take in a couple of design shows, but really I have to except that kids and work don't really mix. So David does his things for a few days and nights and we do ours. Then we have 24 or 48hrs together before we head home.

It works though. I miss out on the champagne parties that David goes to in the evenings, but then he has very tired feet and is pretty much furnitured-out by the end of it all.

We are so extremely lucky to have friends living in the city at the moment so get to stay in their beautiful Milanese apartment which is as central as you can get. The sun came out in Milan. It felt like early summer. 

We did Sempione Park and Giardini Pubblici; the Design Museum and the Natural History Museum; we rode the metro and the tram; we shopped at the local supermarket, became familiar faces at the local patisserie and purused the food market on our doorstep on the Saturday morning; we ate deli salads in the park, olives, italian cheese, stuffed courgette flowers, orecchiette con broccoli and had the best ever Tiramisu at Refettorio Simplicitas. 

Despite being in the middle of a busy city, it was an incredibly relaxing time: a chance to step away from the day-to-day stuff and just be with the kids with the whole day stretched before us and all that different flavoured gelato to work our way through. Heaven.

Next Week: Milan.

We're off to Milan next week for seven days. I'm feeling quite excited, if a little unprepared. We only decided to go a couple of months ago. Normally, any trips we take are booked well in advance. The main reason for this trip is work. Milan is home to the world's biggest furniture fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile - think a kind of 'Milan Fashion Week' for furniture and interiors. As well as the main event, there are countless satellite events throughout the cities various districts. 

It is our first trip to Milan, indeed our first trip to Italy. We toyed with making the trip alone, which would obviously make 'business' sense. We toyed with David making the trip on his own, while I stayed behind with the kids. To be honest I wasn't overly comfortable or happy with either option. The decision we finally settled upon was for us both to go with the kids in toe. This means that I won't really be able to do the business stuff. David will spend the first 48hrs of our trip attending the exhibitions and events during the day and the launch parties in the evenings. Once work has had its 48hrs or so, we can do stuff as a family. 

The real coup of this trip is that we're going to staying at my friend Sarah's city centre apartment. She moved to Milan with her husband and two young daughters just over a year ago, due to her husbands job. Since settling in her new city, Sarah has given us an open invite to visit. We all knew that the ideal time for our visit would be now. But, would you believe this; we will only see Sarah for a mere morning as she is coming back to the UK for her sisters wedding and will return to Milan the day after we leave. What bad timing! 

So, while David hangs out with the design world's movers and shakers in chic city spots, I will be exploring what cultural treats the city has to offer with Lily, Arthur, my terrible sense of direction and Sarah's recommendations. I speak no Italian, but am pretty good and communicating with gesture and expression, which will hopefully be enough to get us by. We will jump on the metro or travel by tram and get 'inside' the city. Lily wants to find the best Pesto Pasta and Arthur will be more than happy to try out the ice cream parlours. I just want to visit the food and flea markets, shop in the supermarket and people watch from an outdoor cafe, cappuccino in hand. As for the evenings, I'll happily give the swanky parties and bars a miss for a glass of wine on my friends couch reading through the pile of books that I will take with me. I'm happy with the simple life whichever city I happen to be in.

No doubt, I will come home with something to share on the blog, but until then, Ciao. x