One hill stand

Taking advantage of really great bus connections in Les Alpes Maritimes, I went to Saint Paul de Vence. No, seriously, I don't think I've ever been to an area with such a complex public transport. For 1,5 euro you can easily get from Nice to Cannes, Monaco, Menton, Antibes, Grasse, Cagne sur Mer and Saint Paul, among others. All the possible connections are available at Conseil General of Alpes Maritimes. Saint Paul is about 19 km kind of North-West from Nice. It takes about 45-55 min by bus number 400.
Is Saint Paul special at all? Yes, yes yes!!! It is a great example of typical provence village. The hill sticks out from far away. It really looks adorable, because down the hill the properties are rather spatious, with gardens and pools, not so close to each other, and up the hill everything is squeezed up to the maximum, you realize that walking those tiny streets.
There isn't a lot to see in Saint Paul. Marc Chagall lived there and he is burried at the local cementary, there is also a chapel, a monument and a museum. Saint Paul is more about the atmosphere and breathtaking views. It's still not high season and I guess Saint Paul isn't that well known, so there weren't many turists, in fact not many people at all, and it was just so calm and peaceful. All the beautiful streets, the views, typical rustic houses. The essence of Provance, definitely, one of those places I've been dreaming about from time to time. Tiny local population, no noise, mindblowing views, small, traditional cafees. What I didn't know about Saint Paul, and certainly what I did not expect, were numerous small art shops and art galleries, with some very nice stuff.
Places like Saint Paul make me realize how much I accually love South France and how hard it will be to move on in just a few more months. Wish I could take a part of Departement 06 with me.

Milan Part 3: Final Countdown

Before my train to Nice, the morning and the afternoon day three were very productive. I found another favourite place in Milan: 'The Hipster Area' with vintage shops, organic cafees, nice atmosphere and fancy people. Shame, we didn't have enough time to stop and enter. My friend (yes, you, pretty little liar) promised me we would be back, but since we were speed touring, there was no time for come backs. Use it or loose it, as one of my professors says. I feel I've kind of lost this one. Visiting places like that makes me regret I don't have real house, so I can't buy any object potentialy problematic in terms of transportation. Hard to guess I'm a huge fan of Audrey.

 

After running through The Hipster Area, we rushed towards The Skyscrapers Area- Unicredit Tower, Palazzo Lombardia and Gae Aulenti. This is completely different part of the city,  different in terms of architecture and climate of Piazza Duomo and Central Station, which are just on the palm of a hand. I really like the idea of colorfull sculptures which make the cold and moder skyscrapers appear more human and lively. If only not the fog, we could  probably have enjoy the panorama of the city.

Confetti here, confetti there, confetti everywhere. Confetti even in The Skyscraper Area. Inevitable sign of the carnival.

I finished my more-than-72-hours in Milan at the Central Station, which itself is a monument. Despite everything I really enjoyed Milan. It is a city full of contrasts. Everything you want, will be there. And I will be back. I just wish they didn't speak Italian. Ha. Ha. Ha.

My friend married a city, take 2: the day full of culture, a.k.a. it's pissing down!

What to do when you end up in Milan and it's raining the whole day? Visit museums! Milan has plenty of them!
Number one, my absolutely favourite, Triennale di Milano: Triennale Design Museum. It focuses on contemporal Italian art. I haven't enjoyed a museum that much for a very, very long time. I'm actually kind of glad the weather wasn't so good, other way I'm not sure we would have went there. The Design Museum is not for everybody. It is a variation of modern art. And I am not a fan of typical modern art 'this-is-a-dot-on-canvas-ooooh-my-god', however, The Design Museum has something really appealing. Those compositions, geometrical constructions, colors, all that put together for a striking visual effect...

And the indicent number of chairs they have! Definitely wird, but interesting, inspiring and innovative architectural solutions. I know how terrible it sounds, but if only there were no cameras; I was dreaming about sitting on them all! I mean imagine, how does it feel, sitting on a chair made entirely from pipe pieces, or on the numer three, the kind of net one.

What else can you find there? Basically everything. Starting with furniture, through sculpture, paintings, posters, objects that don't fall under any of these cathegories, ending with a 'rokini' (bikini from rope).

Number two on Milan art lover bucket list: Museo del Novocento. If you face Cathedrale Duomo, you find the museum on your right sight. The building has an interesting construction, snail-like, it goes round and up.

Unfortunatelly, taking pictures inside is not allowed, but I managed to remember some most remarkable pieces. It is worth seeing 'Quarto Stato'. The painting definitely looks better live, than on the images from the Internet. 

Another discovery for me was Umberto Boccioni, I don't remember exact names of the pieces I liked, but the museum has quite a collection of his works. They also have something by Picasso and Kandinsky. In general the museum focuses on cubism and futurist, so I don't think it's a place for a 'classical' art lover. 

I was visiting all the museum with my friend, she told me at the last floor there was a surprize. I was looking forward to it, thinking that must have been Dali my lover. Well I must say that was a surprize. On the last floor you can find the can with Piero Manzoni's shit. I've heard some crazy stories about it, but I didn't know Milan owned one of the very unique 90 shit-cans. By the way according to google, each of them costs about 125,000 euros. 

Splendind. 

My friend married a city, take 1

Two weeks ago I went to Milan. There is really good rail connection between Milan and Nice. The train is only 5 hours long and costs 15 euros. First class is twice as expencive, but I didn't really notice the difference. Because this is Italian train, you can book tickets via trenitalia, under the label 'tutti treni'. The website is available in English, but the booking information is in Italian only, which is just not nice. I left on Thursday evening, because there are only two connections a day. I was at my friends place about midnight.
We started Friday morning with coffee at one of the little cafees near to her place. Two funny things: in Italy you have to pay for a seat, so you will see many Italian people drinking coffee or having breakfast at the bar or even standing. Second thing: Italians, as well as French have this strange coffee I call coffee-vodka shots, because the coffee is served in this really tiny shot glasses. Some people would call it the real coffee, but it's a thing that a person used to Gregg's medium late will just never accept. Sorry.
First stop: Piazza Duomo. One of the top places to see according to tripadvisor and simmilar websites. From the outside, nothing special really. I mean, it looks the way you expect an old cathedral to look like. Ohh and there is this figure on the door, that if you touch his leg and make a wish, he will bring you luck. Even though the door is really big, you can't really miss the leg, it kind of sticks out as at the picture attached.

After seeing a few similar buildings, the Cathedral Duomo shouldn't be somthing new. But the great part is hidden inside. My friend asked me to go up, You can get student tickets for 7 euros and climb all the way to the top. I wasn't really convinced and decided to go just because I was cold.  And so glad I am, that we did that, the top was absolutely amazing! All the ornaments and sculptures were just on the palm of the hand. You can't really see any of them from the ground. The archtecture is just stunning, I'm not an art historian, so I can't really say a lot, but everything seems to be done with great precision, so perfectly geometricaly measured, each tiny little piece of sculpture fits the rest. I must admint, the most beautiful thing in Milan. After we climbed there, I didn't want go go back and we spent a few minutes just standing there and admiring the greatness of the Cathedral and the panorama of the city (not that great due to weather conditions).

From Piazza Duomo we went to the 'Prada Quarter' as my friend calls it- real name Via Montenapoleona (still no clue what is has to do with Napoleon). This is the neighborhood of ridiculously expensive shops, all of them being so perfectly polished and beautiful. Even if you're not planning on doing some shopping while in Milan, going through Via Montenapoleona feels so sophisticated and so wrong, leaving Milan without stopping there just won't do. 

                Did I mention I went to Milan for St. Valentines? Well that was a good choice. 

                                       Probably the best add ever. Seen at Dolce&Gabbana.

Next stop: the castle and the triumph arc. The striking thing: I didn't acknowledge Milan having a castle. I googled what to do in Milan before coming there, but the castle just somewhow didn't really pop up. Lucky me, my friend from Milan took me there. The castle is much bigger than it seems from the outside, it leads to a park with the triumph arc at the end. Looks good and must be just so much nicer when the weather is appropieate. 

Then, we rushed to Basilica of Saint Ambroggio, the oldest church in the city. After climbing up the Cathedrale Duomo, Saint Ambroggio seemed a bit overrated. Anyway, it's worth just stopping by. and it won't take a lot of time. Basically you just enter, look around and leave. A church from the 4th Century is a piece of history worth seeing. 

We spent the evening having pre-drinks at a friend's house, then we continued in the city centre. We finished the day at Armani Prive, a night club in the heart of the old town, close to the castle. Such a change after Nice, where the average age is too-young-too-even-be-there, students are just everywhere (I am a hypocrite, I know it), ladys wear converse and gentlemen... well, are no gentle at all. Milan looks so much better in terms of night life. Either that orr I just don't know Nice at all. But it seems to me Milan has more middle-class-not-old-but-not-student places, Armain was really ok, men is suits, women in heels, everybody so well behaved. Nice is just either the very low level, either super-millionare places.