How often do you happen to read, in a travel blog or magazine, an article about a place the writer absolutely hates? A place he dreads, a place the loathes, somewhere he’d rather have a dentist appointment than visit?
Well, I suppose this is not something you’re likely to read often on Conde Nast Traveller, but this is precisely what I’m going to write about. The place’s Milan, placed bang in the middle of the Po valley in Northern Italy. It’s my least favourite place in Italy with the exception of Novara, which happens to be similar to Milan in many aspects by the way.
Anyhow, if you asked me to enumerate the reasons why I don’t like Milan I’d warn you to get a comfy chair and some refreshments, for this would be a lenghty rant. But I decided to keep it short, limiting to a few items: the people, and the way the city itself is kept by its inhabitants and by its rulers.
People. Now, before I start let me be clear. I’m generalising. I’m picking up a selective sample and I’ve rolled it over the entire populace, something that every politically correct person in the world would avoid. But what the hell. The Milanese are, without a shadow of a doubt, a succesful bunch of fellows, proud of showing it; this, by itself, shouldn’t be a bad thing, unless one is a sore loser. But if you couple this boastful, I-am-better-and-busier-and-therefore-more-important-than-you attitude with a horrendously volgar accent, one that stresses vowels to breaking point and using colloquial terms for genitals – especially female’s – as substitutes for conjunctions you’ll have the identikit of a quite annoying populace.
Now, the city. Milan lies far from the mountains, which can be seen only on exceptionally clear days when, by a stroke of luck, the local tourist promotion board happens to be sat on a belvedere with high-powered cameras and lenses. It’s, truth be told, bumped in the middle of the Po Valley, an environment so different from the standard Italian postcard that you might as well think you’ve arrived elsewhere.
If it’s winter, it’ll be foggy. If it’s summer, it’ll be hot and humid, that kind of hot and humid that convinces you of being in Vietnam, milk-white sky and terrifying thunderstorms included. If it’s neither summer nor winter, it’ll rain. This is pretty much the weather for many other places in Northern Italy, but being Milan bang in the middle of it all its negative aspects are exacerbated. And the locals’ habit of covering eveything in concrete and/or tarmac doesn’t help either.
Milan used to be a nicey city, filled with old buildings testimony of an industrious people. They weren’t grand establishment, even though Milan had and has its own share of impressive buildings – the Duomo, the Castle – but they were harmonious. Then the war came and with that Allied bombers who tried to replicate there the feuersturm that worked wonders in Hamburg.
You couldn’t blame them for trying – ’twas a war, you see, and we had started it – so no one did. So, once the killing stopped and an unexpected economic boom arrived, the ever-industrious Milanese began rebuilding their city, eagerly helped by workers arriving from all corners of Southern Italy.
What you normally say in such circumstances, to spur the workforce and dodge the blame, is “We’ll build it better than it used to be!”. Thing is, though, that no one said that in Milan. The citizenry went bananas in a rebuilding frenzy that saw an increadibly ugly city sprouting up from the rubble. Canals, the famous navigli masterminded by Leonardo Da Vinci, were covered up, urban motorways replacing them. Wide, tree-lined roads were reduced to featureless sprawls of concrete and tarmac, lined with ugly tenements that usually ruin Italy’s peripheries but that, in Milan’s case, creep up to the very central Piazza San Babila. A metro system was built, with stations garnished in a repellent combination of black rubber floors, dark brown (or yellow, or lime green, or smurf blue) walls and fluorescent lights. Tarmac became the choice material to be used for the city’s sidewalk, happily melting away in the summer. Many other cities in the Po Valley, from Turin to smaller hamlets in Veneto or Emilia, have now resolved to use what’s called “remote heating” where a central station, usually running on waste or methane, produces heating water and energy. Most of Milan’s block of flats still use petrol-powered boilers.

Milan’s M3 Metro, the least hideous in the network (a new one, M5, has just opened and it’s garnished in a repellent combination of magenta tones)
Omg this is really the worst part of Milan but ot has also a very beautiful side ( which I started to appreciate recently, after many years of living there )
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I believe you Gabi… It’s just that Milan’s beautiful side is very well hidden one must think! 😀
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I’ve only ever gotten to Milano Centrale (changing trains) and spent the entire time keeping an eye on my bags. Though watching dodgy people does have entertainment value… 🙂
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You say that because you have never been in Rome 🙂
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Rome is gorgeous!
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Hello from a Roman 🙂
Cheers! Salute,
Luana
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Hello to you!
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You say you’re a cynic, you (fortunately) don’t shy away from discussing the bad and the ugly, and yet you can’t help but find a shining star in the gutter. It would be interesting to visit this new neighbourhood now to see if graffiti has moved in yet.
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Hi Manja! I’ve been in Milan frequently in the spring and summer and I’ve to (grudgingly) admit that the city’s advancing in leaps and bounds. And the Garibaldi-Repubblica district is as shiny and spotless as before and more new shiny stuff is going up there…
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I’m happy to hear this. Haven’t been to Milan since the time when Union Olimpija beat Stefanel Milano in basketball to go to the final four in Rome and I witnessed it as an enemy guest fan. 😀 We didn’t stroll around much, I just remember chilling at the Cathedral and explaining to the locals that there was a basketball match going on that evening. They had no idea. Italy always leaves good impression, or maybe it was because we won, but on the border, when we were leaving Italy, the cheer on the bus changed from the incoming “Italia, Italia, va fan ….” (you know where), to happy “Italia, Italia, Italia!”
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Ahahahahah that’s class!
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