Archive for 'Localities'

As previously discussed, Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world and, certainly, of Italy. As such, any visit requires a little bit of shopping. If you're looking for a genuine experience of the city and a shopping opportunity that is uniquely Milanese, you're going to want to avoid most of the high streets. Instead, you should wander around the local markets and experience the shopping culture, see the city and find the best bargains.

Find a great accommodation in Milan and you can have the perfect European shopping getaway!

Milan is Italy's fashion capital in a country of fashion capitals and any trip there wouldn't be complete without a little spot of retail therapy. However, you don't want to just shop in stores you can go to anywhere in world, you want something unique to Milan and to your time there. This is where markets come in. Not only can you get clothes footsteps from food and flowers and trinkets, you can also haggle the prices and get homemade and local goods unavailable anywhere else in the world. It's also the best way to get a real sense of the culture and lifestyle of a city. Thankfully, the city has a huge amount of markets each day so find a self-catering apartment in Milan and get shopping!

St Mark's Basilica in Venice, is the city's cathedral. The original church was built inside the complex of the Doge's Palace in 828 to house the relics of St. Mark the Evangelist which had supposedly been stolen by Venetian merchants from Alexandria. It was burned to the ground in 976 during an uprising and rebuilt twice. By the time it was to be rebuilt for the second time, the Venetian Republic had become a much greater power and, to symbolise its growing power and wealth, a new basilica complex was built and consecrated in 1094. This is the building that we know today. First, it was only used as the doge's private chapel and became the city's cathedral in the nineteenth century.

It is a well-known fact that Venice is built above a marshland and is home to famous canals, that it is traversed by boats rather than vehicles. Due to this, the city is, understandably, prone to flooding. While some of the city's most luxurious hotels and elegant stores constantly fight against their surroundings to maintain pristine buildings, other people have just given in to the reality of living and being based in Venice. One example of this is a very famous bookshop in the city, Libreria Acqua Alta, who leave the water flow as it will and have placed their goods inside waterproof containers and storage instead.

The Triennale di Milano is a cutting-edge centre for contemporary art, architecture and design. It constantly houses exciting temporary exhibitions and has displayed retrospective exhibitions on major artists like Keith Haring and Roy Lichtenstein and designer brands like Giorgio Armani and Louis Vuitton in the past. The Triennale is housed in a building which was built by Giovanni Muzio in 1923 and is located at the edge of the Parco Sempione in Milan. The name, “Triennale”, means “every three years” and the building's original purpose was to host the international exhibition on decorative arts, industrial arts and modern architecture, held every 3 years in Milan.