Travel
THE ITALIAN RIVIERA Chris Sullivan lands in Milan and takes an extended passeggiata around the coast of Northern Italy
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“Just as I arrived the heavens opened, Old Testament style – thunder, lighting, frogs etc – so I randomly alighted on Pasticceria Orneto, a caffe overlooking the bay full of boats and the adjacent beach, opened in 1953 and entirely unchanged since”
any of the uninformed regard Milan as a rather ugly industrial city, but the reality could not be further from this perception. As the first leg of my sojourn around Northern Italy and the Italian Riviera, I was entirely enamoured of a city centre that is as remarkable as many any of the great Italian cities. The Duomo di Milano is a classic of Renaissance architecture, while the breathtaking glass-domed arcades and art deco features are sights to behold. I was there to DJ at the opening of Milan Fashion Week, so added to the wonderful vistas surrounding one was a cavalcade of beautiful people rarely ever seen in one place at one time. I arrived post-Covid and found that, despite the regulation vaccination passes and multiple and exhaustive online form-filling, which took an entire frustrating day, the journey’s only hitch was a few unscrupulous taxi drivers trying to charge me double the fixed rate of 80 euros from Milan Malpensa Airport to the centre. So I took a far more reasonable 13-euro train instead.
On the first day, I took in the aforementioned Duomo (as one does) and walked about aimlessly, ending up in the utterly remarkable restaurant Santa Lucia, which served me one of the finest yet simplest pasta in tomato sauce this scribe has ever tasted, followed by an equally astounding steak with sautéed potatoes. I eased it down with a bottle of my favourite wine, Sesti Brunello di Montalcino 2018, putting
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