milan

A Sunday Stroll

/ Anna / 4 Comments

Happy Sunday everyone!

Finally the weather here is warming up, the flowers are out, the sun is shinning and you can’t help but have a smile on your face! Spring always makes me feel happy (especially as it means Summer is on the way!) and what better way to enjoy a Spring Sunday than with a stroll in the park!?

I met my friend this afternoon to do just that in Milan’s Parco Sempione, which covers (as I learnt today) 40 hectares from Castello Sforzesco to the Arco della Pace. Apparently it was designed in the style of traditional romantic English parks – which really surprised us – and features watercourses, paths and small rises! I personally love the park as it offers up some excellent people watching opportunities, which is one of my favourite things to do on a lazy weekend!  Milan is abundant with interesting characters to spy on, especially when the sun comes out! Hehe!

After a leisurely walk around, we sat down in the sun on Corso Sempione, to enjoy a refreshing Aperol Spritz.  This is a typical Italian aperitif, particularly popular in the North of the country and is made using 2 parts Aperol (a rather bitter liqueur), 3 parts Prosecco and 1 part Soda! Delicious!

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Absolutely love this! Genius idea to bring your own hammock to the park!

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Castello Sforzesco

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Hello there! Look at this little fellow…he has got the right idea, chilling in the sun!

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Aperol Spritz

We are definitely going to try and make this a new Sunday ritual!  Have a great week everybody!

Anna

An afternoon of interactive art

/ Anna / 1 Comment

One of the great things about having friends in town, especially ones who used to live here, means they are usually keen to go to an exhibition or gallery with you.  So last Sunday my friend and I made our way to one of my favourite exhibition spaces in Milan, Hangar Bicocca, to see the first solo exhibition in Italy of Céline Condorelli.  The title of the exhibition “bau bau” is a play on words, relating to the Italian meaning of ‘bau bau’ as the barking of a dog and the German word ‘bau’ for construction.

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The works which were presented by Condorelli, offered up physical encounters between the art and the viewer and we were encouraged at various points to sit and climb on specific pieces. This is one thing I particularly enjoyed, as I often find modern art quite hard to understand and to see the vision behind it, but getting stuck in and really experiencing the art definitely helps – and leaves you in fits of giggles when you get scared climbing back down the ladder – it was higher than it looks!

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Built using several separate pieces of furniture, each piece becomes reliant on the others and therefore can’t stand alone. Once you are on the ladder, it acts as an extension to the human body.

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My friend looking very at ease with the art….on the other hand, I, in her words, look like I have been put on the naughty step!

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The exhibition featured installations as well as sculpture, video and text and it showed variations in light and time, black and white, daytime and night-time.

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This gold curtain blows gently in the wind and separates dark from light, hot from cold, inside from out.

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This was one of my favourite pieces, showing an Egyptian cotton field from around the 1930’s. It was enormous and really quite beautiful – and hid an archive containing material on the textile and rubber industry.

Whilst I didn’t understand the meaning of all of the installations, I learnt a lot and certainly had a lot of fun…plus before heading home we got frozen yoghurt! So all in all a successful Sunday!

Anna

Hello!

/ Anna / Leave a comment

So, here I am writing my first ever post! I am pretty excited as it has taken me a while to finally start this blog. I think I first mentioned the idea when I was in my last year at university.  I have no real reason for having taken so long to finally get around to it, just pure procrastination, but all that doesn’t matter as I am here now.   I am sure I have a lot to learn so I hope you will be patient with me but I am super excited to get going!

Obviously, January is the time for setting new years’ resolutions, but I’ve never been one for them anyway, so instead I want to lay out some of my hopes and aims for this year. I feel it is going to be a good one and this is a good starting point for my musings in Milan!

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  • First things first, start my blog (so far so good!)
  • Get back to studying German, which up until the age of 18 I was pretty good at until I decided Italian was the way forward and more than neglected my German.
  • Do lots of yoga, which I only discovered I love just before Christmas!
  • Spend a week in Greece at a yoga retreat with my dear friend Grace and leave feeling fabulous
  • Make my way to the South of Italy – Sicily or Sardegna
  • Make the most of EXPO starting on 1st May in Milan and running all the way through to October 31st.  Based around nurturing the planet and renewable energy resources, it is set to bring millions of visitors to Milan and offer up tons of exciting things to see and do.
  • Visit Sienna
  • Return to Modena where I lived on my Erasmus year for 6 months
  • Spend the summer in Essex with my family getting plenty of country air and going for long walks with our crazy Staffy Robbie.
  • Finally make it to Zurich to visit my friend who I haven’t seen in nearly three years
  • Have a father and daughter day in London at the Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon exhibition

I will be sure to keep you all updated on which of these I manage to achieve, I am hoping most of them, always optimistic!

Anna