milano

milan was exciting this past week. when we first got there we immediately went to see the duomo and the galleria. the milan duomo is known for its very gothic architecture. its pretty impressive. the galleria is one of the first indoor shopping malls that houses prada and many other designers.

duomo

the group in front of the duomo

so in the middle of this courtney started talking about the places in europe/italy that she would live in. she mentioned verona and cydney turned around to say, "i've never been to verona..." we all just starred at her for about 5 minutes. she wasn't kidding... we had to explain to her that we had just been to verona.... ohhh cydney.

the galleria

a traditional thing to do in the galleria in milan is to spin around this bull on the ground three times. it is a mosaic and you're supposed to put your heel on the butt and spin to bring yourself good luck. there is a hole where the ground is worn in from people doing this.

me spinning on the bull

after that we had a school sponsored apertivo at a bar called frank's, which is named after frank sinatra. you pay 8 euro and get a drink and there's a buffet with food. this is really popular in milan and there are tons of bars that do this. so we all went together and stuffed ourselves with small appetizers for dinner.

cydney ordered a bloody mary, extra spicy, but when they brought it out she said it tasted awful. so she asked for hot sauce and pepper. this is what they brought her....

cydney peppering her bloody mary

heather and i at frank's

the next day we visited the villa necchi campiglio, which is a design of piero portaluppi. max, or massimo martignoni, took us on a grand tour of this famous villa in milan. he was really great to have because he knows everything about milan design and piero portaluppi, a famous architect from the 20s and 30s. he actually wrote a book which we saw in multiple stores while we were in milan. but milan became a huge city for its design movements, such as futurism. the villa is an example of mixing old with modern. it was beautiful.

max with his book!

awesome chairs at the villa

the pool

staircase

i love the carpet

aaawwweeesssooommmeee doors

very modern chair with very traditional surroundings

my favorite room

i would not mind owning a couple of these

i want

my new bathroom

all of us hanging out after the museum

after seeing this great villa we ended up visiting a modern museum that max really likes. that was pretty much our whole wednesday in milan. on thursday the fashion and interior design girls split up. the fashion girls went with cinzia to some showrooms, while the interior design girls went with max again. because design week is so close, a lot of the showrooms were closed, like kartell, but he took us to some department stores and then to a museum. we weren't disappointed because we're going back for design week with him.

la rinascente department store in milan

obsessed

aaahhhhhhh

interior design girls with max

interior design girls

after our morning with max in milan, all of the girls headed for the airport to go to barcelona. our flight wasn't until 8pm so we killed time until we needed to leave. it was fun because we ended up running in to the street where all of the main designers are, such as tom ford. but i really want to go back because we missed the armani store, which is apparently like a department store with a cafe and everything because armani is based in milan.

get excited for milan design week posts.