On Sunday when I finally finished work, I went out for fresh air. Over countryside, I chose central Milan.
Piazza Cinque Giornate
Pretty crowded, but most of the people were tourists. The locals had fled to the mountains and the sea. With very few locals, the population density was cut half. Compared to the streets during the design week back in April, this was all calm and peaceful.
The temperature was way higher than 30℃. Our destination was a department store. We’ve been living in this flat for over three years, and till very recently, we’d still had the previous owners’ furniture in one corner of the kitchen. We’d kept it there for its function, not for the esthetics. Last month, we finally renovated that corner with new cabinets installed and new furniture in place.
Decorations were needed.
Before entering the department store, I saw a plaza with a statue in the centre. If it were me in the past, I would have passed it by with just a glance. But these days, I’ve worked too much with my computer that my attention to things outside my computer has shrunken to nil. And this has been concerning me.
Awareness is the first step of the cure.
My life is bigger than my computer. Also, Milan, where I live, is such a beauty.
So I decided to pay attention to that plaza. “What is this?” I asked Y.
“Piazza Cinque Giornate, which commemorates the five-day fighting in 1848 when the Milanese drove the Austrians out of the city. Immediately after the flighting, the Italian War of Independence broke out.”
Y knows a lot of things. He can tell, just by the appearance, whether a mosquito is male or female, hungry or full of blood. Every time I listen to him talk seriously about things I didn’t know, I’m always hooked.
We didn’t buy anything in the department store. We then stopped at a bar in Brera. I ordered a glass of Nero d’Avola: cherry with a little bit of peppercorn, which was good, but the Perricone from the same region in Sicily seemed to have more character.
Trade Union Building
On Monday I went out again, to central Milan again. This time was for business.
This time it was Palazzo Castiglioni that caught my eye, and it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it. In 2020, on the eve of the outbreak of Covid in Italy, we visited a citrus exhibition in the area. I was utterly impressed by the ornate facade of the building.
Palazzo Castiglioni was built in 1903 (George Orwell was born in the same year), when the Art Nouveau movement was sweeping through Europe. In Italy, the trend was given another name, Liberty Style. Art Nouveau was all about over-the-top decorations. With Liberty Style welcoming more baroque elements, the Art Nouveau vibe in Italy was more on the classical side. The architect who designed this building was Giuseppe Sommaruga.
Milan is so beautiful; the world is so big. Yes, I love wine and my work in wine, but wine is not everything to me. My pursuit in life is way beyond just wine.
From now on I’ll be writing about more than just wine.
