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When our little sustainability tribe, happened to visit Milan, a city popular for shopping can you imagine what we did there? No, we didn’t change our travel light, minimalist ideas just because we visit the mecca of fashion! Rather we skipped all the shopping and just explored the historic side of the city. But if you are thinking of fashion shopping in Milan, please read this before you go and be a conscious shopper, choose sustainable fashion.
Here are some fun things in no particular order you can do in Milan with kids during summer
Milan is a very public transport friendly city; the great connectivity of Milan Metro can take you anywhere in Milan. We travel from Venice by train and reached Milan train station, Milano Centrale, which in itself a great sight for tourist. It is the largest train station in Europe by volume but is greatly organized. The station has no definite architectural style, but is a blend of many different styles, especially Liberty and Art Deco, but not limited to those. It is adorned with numerous sculptures.
Milan Centrale
In city, you can easily find the bike rental or bike sharing facility, which is a self-service and short-term rental facility.
Bike sharing facility
There are many pocket parks dotted around the Milan, so after playtime in a pocket park next to our hotel in the evening, we decided to
explore Milan on foot at night and look for some kids-friendly restaurant. We enquired about a good restaurant to students on street, they looked at each other and asked, ‘do you want to try Milan’s best Pizza?” Now, who won’t say no to it?
Pizzeria da Giuliano, the place these boys recommended us looked an ordinary but cozy place but completely packed with people and large groups. We managed to get a small table for us. The concept was, you can order different pizzas with different toppings by the slice. But the slices were huge, and the taste of each pizza was outstanding. The friendly staff helped us with the order and also become friends with Ruhaan very quickly.
The next day, hubby left for Ferrari drive experience in Cremona near Milan, so I and Ruhaan planned the whole day as per our liking. Lots of walking, exploring outdoors and lots of play in the green park. Rather this was the reason we decided to stay near Parco Sempione. After a sumptuous breakfast, we started our exploration from Arco Della Pace. Arch of Peace is made of marble and topped with horse-drawn chariots, it was built as a tribute to Napoleon’s victories.
Then we walked towards the left from where we heard a noise of kids playing, that’s how you find play areas. The play park was very beautiful and most of it shaded by large trees. Apart from slides, swings, climbing structures, there was an electric train and electric toy cars which were very popular amongst the kids. We spent there good 2 hours, till Ruhaan’s heart was content. After a gelato and slush drink, we walked towards the duck pond and oh boy, that was fun! There was a local family with kids feeding those ducks some bread (Now I know feeding ducks the bread is not a good idea, but those fat ducks were quite hungry and noisy). There were kids and even grownups gathering around and laughing and enjoying the sights of those funny ducks.
The
re is a restaurant-cafe very close to the duck pond, where we took a break for cool drinks and one more gelato. There are good facilities inside the park Sempione. After some great time with ducks, we walked towards the Castello Sforzesco through green slopes and under the huge trees. There were wildflowers like daisy and lots of bees and bugs on the green slopes of the park just outside the castle so instead of taking a guided tour of the castle with huge crowds we decided to just explore flowers and bugs outside the castle.
The castle is a great place if you want to see Michelangelo’s unfinished last work and frescoes by Da Vinci and Bramante. This is also the popular place for international art exhibits and events, like Milan Fashion Week fashion shows. The castle looks great at night too, when some colorful lights are thrown on the tall walls of the castle.
Castello Sforzesco
In total, we spent at least 4 happy hours in Parco Sempione and I was surprised to know that this park is still kind of off-the-beaten path in Milan. It is the largest park in Milan with around 95 acres of area. I highly recommend this urban jungle not just for families with kids but it’s a really great place to relax with a book, take strolls and enjoy the beautiful views.
Famed for its architecture, Milan trip is incomplete without visiting Milan Cathedral located in the center of Piazza del Duomo, which is well connected by metro from any side of the city. This cathedral took around 600 years to complete, there numerous sculptures on the mesmerizing front facade and if you could manage to visit it around sunset time, the cathedral almost glows in the light, unfortunately, we missed the last entry and could go up the roof of the cathedral, which is popular for the views. But hanging out in Piazza del Duomo is fun too. Just take buy some gelato and explore. There are always some artists performing and displaying their art or people and children feeding pigeons.
But most importantly even if you can’t enter the Cathedral, you can spend hours admiring the front facade of the cathedral.
Another popular spot in Piazza del Duomo is Grand Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, this extravagant, opulent shopping area is known as the oldest shopping mall in the world. (I still will call Istanbul’s Grand Bazar oldest shopping mall). It’s a great architectural piece, the glass panels on the roof, let the light come in (to make it more functional in terms of use of the building). Even if you are not into shopping like me, it’s worth a quick visit. The paintings and work on the roof and tiles on the floor are beautiful. Haven’t seen such artistic shopping mall before.
Apart from above things to do there are some other popular places as well, one of which I missed going because of lack of time was Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology. Church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie is another place popular because of Leonardo da Vinci, inside the building lies one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in the world – The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.
The other place is Naviglio Grande, it’s not very known but Milan also has a few canals and walk along the Naviglio Grande canal is popular but as we just visited Venice, we dropped this place from our list.
Honestly apart from the above things, I found Milan more of shopping destination and business hub not really a sustainable travel destination. Like many people, it was more of an airport location for us, but we definitely had a great day out in Milan, with a lot of beautiful memories!
King Triton with his mermaids
If you are interested in sustainable travel destinations, don’t forget to read our list here.
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Amruta Kshemkalyani, an expert sustainability professional turned social entrepreneur, is the founder of the Sustainability Tribe, AK Sustainability
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