My journey over to Milan from Florence was delayed by 4-5 hours, hence my well planned shopping safari around Milan never took place, but my late night visit for dinner did included a quick journey which I’ll post about here. In comparison to Florence it’s much more diverse, more of a city, more lively at night, but with the same rustic streetscapes surrounding Florence with finely detailed buildings. It’s more modern while stylish with a larger urban crowd hovering abouts the area. Most of my spare hours in Milan were spent eating at Obika, but I took a few pics here and there….so enjoy them after the jump! (I’ll include a few interesting going away images as well)

Here’s the Piazza Duomo of Milan which is an astonishing work of art besides the big printed posters on the front. Yes, this was annoying, but it was everywhere…including some ads.

See, big ads!..anooying, funny, weird, corporate grafitti…you decide.

Here’s a detail of the door at the duomo…I couldn’t get in since it was closed, so I just took a picture….super detailed. Big bronze door casting…..so nice!

Right next to the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele building which is absolutly breathtaking architecturally…but then again, much like the bothersome ads on building fronts were annoying cheesy brand stores inside.

Otherwise, the view is marvelous! I walked around looking upwards the entire time.

I’m standing in the dead center of this Dome…pretty cool…thats me…

A few blocks north of the Duomo is the huge Castello Sforzesco. I really didn’t have time to walk around it, and the only signs of life inside were the custodians leaving. The bricks rocked! Otherwise, the lighting really made the castle seem majestic.

A street side near a bakery and a few bars…big advertisements…they really like to advertise here.

Some grafitti in the subway..nothing amazing, but much better than Florence.

A bakery Yasmina took me to that’s open 24/7….i would have gotton something, but I was megas full from Obika.

Okie, now for the “going away” part I mentioned.  Around Florence, Milan, and the airport, were a few things that motivated me to take pictures….for the good, bad, and the somewhat confusing.

The good: I love the clickity sounding train station signs though somewhat beaten up and dirty, they had a nice nostalgic touch… however, it was weird having a digital version of it about 4 feet away which was much easier to read, and was updated faster.

The good: HOW SMART!!! An automated system to bring trays back from the back to the front… I dont think i have to explain why it amazed me…all airports should do this.!!!!

A bit ODD: I’m not sure what this is, but it seemed like an internet cafe on wheels, or a merry-go-round of sorts. Either, the entire thing rotated to allow people in and out, or the freaking thing spun while surfing the net?? beats me. Check them out: Tiko.

The BAD: I have not been on Northwest for sometime, but the controller used to navigate your TV screen and activate all your other services SUCKS! It’s one of the most uncomfortable, un-ergonomical, confusing, messy controllers I’ve ever used….even myself, as a designer, had a hard time understanding it. I had to use my pinky to press buttons as my thumb, which is not fat, pressed 2-3 buttons all the time. The help menu, which took probably 3 minutes to find, was not much use as well(pictured above). The hardest part ws actually getting the GUI into the right language. Argh,,,i gave up after awhile…and just stuck to some movies. I obsered/spied on the person next to me try to play a movie…it took here probably a solid 6 minutes to get to the movie section, then another 5-6 to figure out how to select a movie without it going back to the damn ugly main menu each time she pressed downwards.

Flying back home…Milan Italy back to Boston! I love these informational visualization maps.. I wonder how true they are.
So that was my quick visit to Milan…but I’ll be back soon 😉