Ladies Who Lunch a Milano

I left the lake on Wednesday morning and caught the train from Varenna back to Milan. When I lived in Milan, time spent outside of the city was golden, but having left, I was anxious for a dip back into my old life.

My first stop was the Mondadori bookshop on Piazza Duomo, where I picked up a couple of books by Niccolo' Amaniti and Lidia Ravera and mused at the fact that, although Mondadori is currently embroiled in a major corruption scandal and has just been ordered to pay a 560 million euro fine for its misdeeds, everything felt clean, normal and calm, almost to the point of being un-Italian. I left with my books in an eco-friendly paper bag with a message encouraging me to use energy-saving lightbulbs and save the planet.

After that I walked back across the piazza, giving bracelet-sellers and pooping pigeons alike my best Parisian glare, and met my friend, who took me to the Californian bakery on Via Larga for lunch. Lesson learned: if you would like to sit in a shaded outdoor garden eating a bagel topped with fresh, healthy ingredients, this is the place for you. If you would like to eat large quantities of delicious baked goods, rest assured, this place is genuinely American in its attitude to dessert. If you would prefer your delicious cake to be accompanied by equally delicious coffee, think again. While my friend may have been a little mean in her condemnation of our espressos as "sock juice", they were definitely more USA than Italian in style too and, in my book, this is not such a good thing.

My last hour in Milan was spent in a rapid raid of the three fabulous floors of my favourite Italian clothes shop, Nadine, whose flagship store is located at San Babila. While the quality is sometimes not quite high enough to justify the price, the clothes have a definite Italian style that is hard to find in France (There is colour! There are chic little details that you don't have to be a Parisian fashionista to notice!) and I picked up a sweet little bag, reduced from 45 euros to 20 to take home with me. Happiness is ...