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.

Monte Carlo Film Festival

Yesterday I had a pleasure to visit Monte Carlo Film Festival in Monaco. The festival is now taking place for the 12th time. The opening confrence was held on Tuesday and the Award Ceremony will be held this Saturday, before the closing dinner. 

How to get there? You book free entries for screenings at the Tourism Office in Monaco, for official galas you will have to pay; and in order to enter some other events, you need an invitation.  I was lucky enough to be invited for a lecture by great American director Peter Bogdanovich. It took place in Theatre des Varietes, at the big port in Monaco at 5 pm. I didn't really know what to expect, I couldn't find much information about it, I've never been to that theatre before and I didn't even know the dress code. 

I think the best way to get there form Nice is to take the bus number 100 and stop at Place des Armes in Monaco, then go down to the port. The theatre is just to the right, less than 5 min walk from the bus stop, however we had some major problems finding it, you have to pass the little playground, then the school at here it is, hidden in the back.

Good for us, we arrived on time and got really great seats. Apart from a few rows in the middle, that were booked, the rest was not numbered. 

The lecture started with a speech by the main director Ezio Greggio. To my biggest surprise it was in Italian. Can't tell much about it since I don't really know Italian. Funny, I realize Monaco is just on the palm of a hand from Italy, but I've always thought the official language was French. After the short presentation Peter Bogdanovich came.

He looks exactly like on all the photos you can google. 

This so called lecture was more like an interview-biography-filmmaking talk. Really interesting. Shame some ladies in a row in front of me spend the whole time on Facebook and some others playing CandyCrush. Well I guess I'll just never understand this kind of people. If you don't really give a shit, why would you come just to embarrass yourself? Anyway, Bogdanovich was such a nice man! What a great stories he has. He would just casually say oh well, then Audrey Hepburn came and told me that...   Alfred Hitchcock scared the shit out of me... me and Orson Wells were having breakfast when... What a great life he had! Knowing all these amazing people, working with them, being a friend to all this legends. I mean I can't really imagine what's like to talk to Audrey or have a drink with Alfred, share a croissant with Orson. Pure abstraction, if you ask me. However, I must admit he's a bit odd. Not like scary odd. But his specific face expression made me wonder what was going on his mind. He spoke a bit about the beginning of his career and love for film, about filmmaking technics, that probably wouldn't mean anything to you, unless you're a film geek. He also talked about his last film, 'She's funny that way'. It was screened the first day of the festival, shame I didn't have a chance to see it. It should be in cinemas some time this spring. Can't wait! 

His attitude and honesty were really striking for me. He didn't bother saying there were things he didn't like, didn't find interesting or well made. The meeting finished with him telling some funny stories. 

After him another gust came in, apparently really famous, cause paparazzi were screaming hahaha. Unfortunately the next part was held in Italian which means no point for us in staying. On our way out we popped up on Peter and obviously I had to do something stupid such as asking him to hire me. Good job, he was probably having a blast deep inside. Anyway, if he did that, he kept it for himself. He spoke to me for a while and wished me luck ;)

All the photo credits: Ally R.

Fête du citron in Menton

So last Sunday I was in Menton for the Fete du Citron. This is one of the strangest things I've seen in France so far (next to vine sachets I guess).

How did I get there?
From Nice you can take a bus number 100 that starts at Promenade des Arts. It's 1.5 euro and it takes about an hour to get there. The biggest advantage of the bus are the great views, as it goes through Villefranche, Monaco, Cap d'Ail. This time we decided to take the train. It's 4 euros, goes from Nice Ville (Gare SNCF, Gare Thiers-the tram stop) and it takes about 30 min to get to Menton.

What is Fete du Citron?
Apparently this is somethig Menton is very famous for. I've never heard about this before. My friend mentioned it to me a few weeks ago saying this is the 'it thing' and I totally had to come. So I did. The whole city was decorated with lemons. They were everywhere. Lemon cake, lemon muffin, lemon brioche, lemon-just-lemon.

                                                        Street in the city centre  

                                            The lemon-just-lemon, but a really huge one

Then we went for lemon parade. It reminded me a lot of carnival in Notting Hill in London. Music, dancers, clowns and the rest of this carnival-ish stuff. Less drinking than in London, but much  more confetti. The one spectacular thing that differs Menton carnival parade from similar events are the enormous lemon-orange sculptures. Absolutely amazing. Lemon-orange panda, snake, dragon and a lot more. The parade started at 2:30 and was about 1.5h long.

                                                  Confetti to the left, fake snow to the right!

                                          Geez, how did she even... ? Outstanding costume.

Later we went to the garden. A bit less hectic with less people, so we finally had a chance to take a closer look at the amazing instalation. We had joint ticket, Corso des fruits + jardin for 15 euros, standing places, you can get seats if you want to, but I like that with the standing ticket you can freely move around, follow the interesitng group if you feel like. My friends pre-booked the tickets, however I got mine in turist office on Sunday and it still was ok, I was a bit scared they would be sold out.  I'm wondering what they're going to do with all the fruit after the carnival. If you know, please leave a comment. Similar parade took place last Sunday and the last one is on 1st March, that is this Sunday, in case you're interested in going.

                           This rat/mouse with white, plastic fingers really freaked me out.

In the garden you can buy lemon souvenirs. There were lemon trees, lemon jam, some other food stuff I didn't quite get, plates, mugs, you can also have a cup of tee, with lemon naturally.

More info: Fete du citron official site

                                                  Always blue sky in Riviera. Hi there!