Via Manzoni 31 is the address for all Armani fans visiting Milan. The whole block is filled with Armani shops, including (but no limited to) Emporio Armani, Armani Jeans and Armani Casa. Two full floors are devoted to items of high fashion. All aspects of life are catered — may your need be a celebration, strict business suit or just something easy to wear, you should find something here.
The location of the store complex is good, just next to Montenapoleone metro station. One of the high fashion streets, Via Monte Napoleone, starts nearby the southern corner of the store.
There are also some extra perks, such as a Japanese restaurant Nobu, Armani Caffe and a chocolate delicatessen Armani Dolci. Prepare yourself with some time and thick wallet.
www.giorgioarmani.it, Via Manzoni 31 (next to Montenapoleone metro station), Milan, Italy
We just booked a quick-get-away to Tallinn, Estonia. Two days of Tallinn old town, good food and hopefully a trip to KuMu art museum.
The trip turned a some sort luxury escapade, as we booked five star hotel (got a good deal) and had to book the business class tickets for the boat, as economy was full. Hopefully these people will meet up my expectations.
The weather should be nice and hot, so hopefully I can take some good photos.
10 Corso Como is a shop, café, restaurant and a generic living room that has inspired a new wave of boutique shops in metropolises around the world. The store is hard to describe, as it sells clothes, shoes, designware, lamps, memorabilia and everything in between.
The prices are high, as the stuff is generally speaking top-notch — Italian design, haute couture from Milanese design houses and so forth.
The store is located a bit off from the commercial centre of Milan, but well worth the trip. The surrounding area is also nice, with inexpensive restaurants, trendy bars and a few other shops.
www.10corsocomo.com, 10 Corso Como, Milan, Italy
Milan is one of the best destinations for haute couture clothing, shoes, boots and accessories. All of these can be found stylishly executed in Prada shops, found nearby Duomo (in Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II) and in the golden rectangle (on Via Monte Napoleone).
The shops are worth of a visit even if you don’t have a budget to buy anything. The display of items and the overall look and feel of the shops, especially in Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, are reminiscent of older, more elegant ages.
If you do have the budget, you can easily find both classic and more relaxed shoes for both him and her, not to speak of suits, dresses, jackets and so forth. Prada’s style is minimalistic and the only telltale sign is the small red strip. So, if you think that Milan style is too flamboyant for you, consider checking Prada.
www.prada.com, Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II 63/65 (next to Duomo), Milan, Italy
I bought a new Nokia N95 on Friday and took it into use today. The first impressions are very positive, everything works flawlessly and the phone has everything I need.
The most impressing part of the phone was transferring all kinds of stuff from my old phone to the new one. I’ve done this earlier with not too good results, but now it worked almost as in movies.
I made a full backup of my old phone using Nokia PC Toolkit and then installed the backup to my new phone; got my messages, contacts and images in place.
There were a couple of minor glitches. First, I tried to do the sync from phone to phone, but it didn’t copy SMS (note to Nokia: get this fixed) — it copied the address book and the backup installation copied it again, so I had all contacts twice. This resulted me removing 300+ contacts manually. Not that bad as it sounds, you can delete a contact quite fast.
The second glitch was that the well-copied messages lost their connection to the address book. The phone shows the number of the sender in all old messages. Please fix this, too, in the next sync versions.
All in all, Nokia has made remarkably improvements in the phones and syncing processes.
Grand Hotel Verdi offers big rooms for reasonable prices. Our room was twice the size of a standard European hotel room, and triple the size of a standard London hotel room. For Americans, the room wouldn’t be huge, just big. This combined with an excellent breakfast (especially when compared to breakfasts in other Italian hotels), their offer was hard to beat.
The hotel is located next to Corso Como, so there are a few good restaurants nearby. There is also a nicely stocked supermarket just behind the hotel building, so your basic needs should be well catered. Going to Duomo or the golden triangle of fashion, you need to take a metro from Garibaldi or Repubblica, a few hundred meters from the hotel.
The service in the hotel was excellent, the staff were knowledgeable and they checked all kind of things for us from the Internet and over the phone.
www.grandhotelverdi.com, Via Melchiorre Gioia 6, Milan, Italy, +39 02 623 71
As most old cities, Milan has also an ancient castle that has been the symbol of power and military strength — nowadays known as Castello Sforzesco. The castle is located next to Cadorna railway station (Stazione Ferrovie Nord Milano), easily accessible from Cadorna and Cairoli metro stations.
The castle dates back to 14th century, when the first fortress was built to protect the city. That fortress has been demolished in a revolution and later the castle was rebuilt on 15th century. The interiors of the castle were revamped for the ducal residence on the same century. Since then, the castle has not changed that much. It has seen a lot of owners, for example, it has been used by Spanish and Austrians as military barracks. The castle was restored after the unification of Italy, late 19th century.
There is no entrance fee to the castle, except to the museums. There is a big park at the northern side of the castle for leisure strolls.
Piazza Castello (Cairoli Metro Exit), Milan, Italy
