Milan's funky Navigli neighborhood at night. Photo by Matteo Carrasale, taken from the great article in La Cucina Italiana on Milan's aperitivo scene (click on photo to be taken to article)
Translating a guide book serves as a pretty good yardstick for measuring how well you know your town. I’ve been working on translating a guide to Milan for the last couple of weeks, and it makes me realize not so much that I don’t know my fair city (of the recommended activities, I’d done them all except for visit one out-of-the-way gelateria – OK, and I haven’t technically done a “walking tour of Art Nouveau architecture” but I have passed by and admired the buildings referred to in the guide), but that since I had a child, I just don’t get out enough.
A couple of weekends ago, my husband and I had a rare bambino-free Saturday night. The pressure was on to come up with something amazing to do. It felt like this was our ONE BIG CHANCE to have a social life. I looked through restaurant reviews and show listings and nothing really caught my eye. In the end, I told my husband that we should just go out for a nice aperitivo (Milan is famous for its aperitivo, which is like a happy hour but with large buffets of food that end up being a free dinner – read more about it in La Cucina Italiana magazine), which is something we haven’t done in a very long time. His response? “I think we are too old for aperitivo…”
It is true that aperitivo is also popular with a younger crowd, but I wasn’t planning on going to a place frequented by the hair-gelled 19-year-olds who throw back the Negronis while still seated on their scooters outside the bar. I was sure there had to be a place for us. Then in translating this guide, I came across a different kind of aperitivo. The Terme Milano (a spa and wellness center created inside some of the city’s old Spanish walls) near Porta Romana offers sparkling wine and a light buffet to those who enter the thermal baths after 5:30 p.m. As it says at the end of the video below “You bring the bathing suit. We will take care of the rest.” In fact, the price of admission (35 Euros after 5:30 p.m. Monday to Friday) includes towels, robes, flip-flops and courtesy kit full of bath products. We haven’t tried it out, but since “taking the waters” is popular with the age-spot set (though in this era of plastic surgery and high-tech dermatological treatments, does anyone even get age spots anymore?), I don’t think there is any fear of being the oldest people poolside with our complimentary spumante.
LOVE the banner and title of this new blog! Here’s hoping that with some babysitter’s help I might be able to go back to being a blog reader again…. sigh…. fingers crossed!!
Shelley – you have three kids (toddlers) so if you have time to brush your hair in the morning, I consider you a superstar! Don’t worry about catching up on your blogs!
So where did you go on your one chance, bambino free meal?
I hope it was fun.
My husband and I recently had the chance of a bambino free meal. It was so nice to get away and be an adult couple again , but we spent the entire time talking about our young daughter anyway.
Actually we have gone out alone before, though not very many times. We ended up going to a restaurant we know and like that is not far from our house. It’s in an old cascina, and they now have a wine bar in the cantina so after dinner we went downstairs and tried some grappas. It was nice. It was our five-year wedding anniversary (as I had mentioned on my Twitter).