The weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of September the student organization organized a bus trip to Tuscany. Leaving at 6:15 Italian time (7ish) from the university we drove to a nature park to enjoy some lunch. From there we went to a wine castle in Tuscany to try some of their wines and a short tour explaining how to make wine. We tried one white and two red wines, and while the former was decent the latter two were quite boring. As many of the participants on the trip were more interested in the alcohol percentage over the actual taste the tour was quite short, the tour guide quickly perceived that people had no clue/low interest – not that it mattered as Italian wine barrels look remarkably similar to the ones I’ve seen in France…
Anyhow, we then drove from the wine castle to Pisa where we were going to eat dinner, party, and stay the night. Dinner was good, although in very Italian style (disorganized, not the actual food), party itself was so-so, after party at 3am at the campsite was great. In fact we ended up drinking some Vino Santo from the aforementioned wine castle that someone bought there. It tasted great, but my view my have been biased by the earlier alcohol consumption.
On Sunday we had an organized tour of Pisa. Basically, Pisa is a small town of 80-90k inhabitants that would be completely unknown if it wasn’t for the leaning tower. The leaning tower is one of the three main buildings in the area of the cathedral, which in addition to the tower contains the cathedral and Italy’s largest baptistery. We only saw the tower from the outside as it costs a fortune to get upstairs and instead settled for the other buildings which certainly did merit a visit.
This is one of the events I have anticipated ever since I first heard of it. It’s a simple concept, and beyond that I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:
- Rent a special tram
- Get a Heineken sponsorship
- Get 40-50 people into Heineken merchandise and decorate the tram with Heineken
- Load the tram with said 40-50 people and drive around Milan for 3 hours
- Party on.
On Wednesday September 12th nine of us set sails, or wheels, for Rimini in two cars. We stayed a hostel not to far from the beach as September is already out of season for Rimini. The town was indeed a bit dead, but it was a great trip which lasted until Saturday morning.
One the way down we stopped in Bologna to pretend to be tourists, and I must say that we succeeded. First of all we drove around town without a map, having no clue where to go. Secondly, we managed to arrive late enough for restaurants to be closed for lunch. Thirdly, well we also saw some stuff… Basically we just walked around in Bologna and the main highlight was to go up into one of the old towers. The trip up is about 100m, and includes 500 steps.
We also had an excursion to San Marino, the small state inside Italy with about 28000 inhabitants. The main interest of San Marino is the old castle which is placed on a very high hill and explains how such a small republic could keep its independence for so long. The view up there was great. A great view to the Adriatic sea and a similarly great view into Italy.
Finally, as going to Rimini without partying would be an act of blasphemy there’s also a few party pictures… We had some good fun at the hostel drinking and playing games, and of course at the beach enjoying a bottle of polish white wine.
Tuesday September 11th turned out to be a day of tourism. Francesco, our local guide and fellow CEMS student, organized a trip to Palazzo Brera. At Palazzo Brera we saw the old library, the old observatory, the botanical garden, and parts of the large art museum. In addition, the buildings also host the Academy of Fine Arts. Overall, a very nice trip including some historical lessons regarding not only Milan but also renaissance art.
On Saturday September 8th we went for a trip to Lake Como. Originally the plan was to join an ESN* group, but we slept too long. Szymon, who has his car here, then suggested to drive there and as a result five of us had a small roadtrip: Szymon and Zuzanna (both polish), Melissa (Australian), Martin (Norwegian), and myself. We (very swiftly) looked inside the church and basically headed straight for the lake itself. Melissa joined the entire ESN group for drinks while the rest of us rented a boat… a pedalboat that is. It wasn’t cheap, but at least it was rusty. In any quite a lot of the pictures below are from the trip on the boat. Following our luxury cruise we had some dinner inside Como before heading back to Milan.
*ESN: Erasmus Student Network, an international student organization in charge of organizing exchange students. In Milan, they are represented on 8-9 universities, so for some trips and parties there are people coming from all those schools.
The entire week - monday to friday - we had our so-called Blocked Seminar. It’s a one week seminar with eight hours of classes which ended by a two hour written exam on friday. The subject was Public Management, or in other terms, how can the public institutions attract investments and help the national companies compete without distorting competition.
Every day we had lunch in the Bocconi Restaurant. It is actually quite similar to a restaurant, and is usually only used by teachers, professors and the like. Basically it’s far too expensive for students. In any case, as you can see in the pictures the lunch consisted of a nice buffet, wine and coffee if you so desired.
We had social events every day of the week (pictures from the tourism in the post below) and we of course had to finish in a grande finale after the friday’s exam. We first went for aperitivo at a place called g-lounge, following which we had pizza (at 11pm). After dinner we went to a place in Milan with tons of bars, and where people stand all over the street and have fun. Finally, we walked down to Naviglio which is the only water in Milan also covered by bars and a few clubs where we ended the evening.
On Wednesday September 5th the CEMS Blocked seminar hosted a guided tour at the Castello Sforzesco for all participants at the seminars (only a bunch showed up though). The building of the castle was initially begun in the 15th century by duke, and was then is now named after him: Sforza. In between, the castle has undergone multiple name and architectural changes as it also changed ownership between Milan and invaders such as Spanish forces and Napoleon. In addition to the towers and walls, which were the only purpose of this tour, the castle also hosts 8 museums containing pictures by Leonardo da Vinci, among others. Overall a very nice tour also giving a (very) brief overview of the history of Milan which naturally ended with a dinner.
