What’s old can be new

WEEK 27

I’ve been visiting Milan since the early 1990s, when Irena and I lived in the south of France for 18 months. We drove to Italy every chance we could get – sometimes just over the border to Ventimiglia to buy wine and Reggiano (at the time, Italian products were very limited in France). We’d make longer trips in winter to ski Courmayeur at the Italian base of Mont Blanc. But it was Milan that became our frequent, big-city urban escape, a speedy 3.5-hour drive away.

This past Monday, I arrived in Milan for a week of work, and on the ride from Malpensa, I thought about the two of us 25 years ago, in our rented Citroen, passports and Lira in hand, navigating from the Autostrada to a hotel in the “Centro” with a paper map unfolded on my lap, and Irena calling out street signs in Italian. That’s how you learn a city.

I get the sense that we enjoy Milan more than most, with its walkable golden triangle of high fashion, hipster ‘hoods like Brera and the newer Porta Nuova district a bit farther north by the train station. As with many places in Europe, the streets we wander here, and stores and restaurants we love to visit, tend to stay exactly as they are, year after year. I find that permanence calming and reassuring, and in such stark relief to New York where the speed of turnover can feel disorienting and breathless.

But romance and favorites aside, on this trip, I am determined to branch out in the limited time available and explore a new-for-me area – Navigli – the subject of several articles on must-do neighborhoods in Milan.

The weather was atrocious. Five days straight of oppressive low clouds, and skies that cycled from spitting rain to full downpours, left a dull grayness over what is, in good light, a monochromatic city. Add to that intense, 10-hour workdays in a windowless meeting room, and it’s no wonder I woke up sluggish and irritable Friday morning. Irena had arrived mid-week and already reached her limit navigating tiny sidewalks holding an umbrella.

But good food and wine and gelato can lift the spirits – not to mention this project. How could I leave Milan without doing something new? So, off we went, Friday at 2:00 p.m., paper map in hand, to walk a few kilometers from the Duomo (Milan’s cathedral and heart of the city) southwest to Navigli.

The neighborhood is named after the Naviglio Grande, the oldest and biggest canal in Milan built centuries ago (we’re talking 12^th century) as part of a network of waterways that connected land-locked Milan to the Ticino River, which flows from Lago Maggiore in the north. The Naviglio Grande is more than 50km long and played an essential role during the construction of the Duomo – and likely many other buildings of that era – as massive marble blocks were transported from northern Italy by river and canal.

Some of the city’s oldest churches are in Navigli – one we passed on our walk, the Basilica di San Lorenzo, dates to the 4^th century. It’s impossible for me to stand before something that old and contemplate the Milanese going about their lives.

Today, of course, nearly all the canals in the city have been filled in, except for a portion of the Naviglio Grande lined with centuries-old buildings that now house tiny shops, galleries and one adorable restaurant after another.

Despite the damp, 45-degree weather (which persisted for two more days through our Sunday departure) – and the gray canal water blending with the drab sky – the area was charming and remarkably full of life. Locals and visitors sat outside under awnings and umbrellas, drinks and nibbles in hand, chattering away.

I imagine this place on a clear and dry day, maybe in spring, looking like the many tourist photos I found online. Something tells me it will be here when I return…