Work and Pleasure
Let’s just get this straight. Jodi and I went on an extended business trip. That’s right, a fabulous business trip to Milan. It just so happens, we spent the first week working in Milan, and then the next week meandering on over to Rome, up the coast of Italy, and to Paris for a few days.
We hopped on a plane ….
on Sunday, April 10, headed for Milan, Italy. When we arrived the next day, Doug and Roy put us to work. We visited lots of showrooms around town, including Poliform, Driadre (where we saw Phillipe Starck) and then ended up at Cavalini’s for dinner.
Tuesday was more showroom snooping, and an incredible party in a renovated warehouse by Capellini and Paltrona Frau - unbelievably cool, and the pictures don’t do it justice. Just a design-frenzy filled with lots of booze, and beautiful people (and me).
On Wednesday, it was technically the first day of the fair, the Salone Internazionale del Mobiles. We hit the big stuff, visiting the Poliform, Flexform, and Tre-Piu. Tre-Piu then took us to Lake Como, on the border of Italy and Switzerland, for dinner at Villa D’Este. Once ranked one of the best restaraunts/hotels in the world, let me tell you that it was no let-down — quite possibly the best meal I’ve ever had, hands down. Incredibly beautiful little town. We even had our own private Picasso museum tour and drinks before our fabulous dinner.
Thursday was more fair, but I spent a good majority of the time working remotely (plus I was a little burnt out on design-design-design!) Later that night was the Promemoria party at Romeo Sozzi’s. They had fabulous cocktails, and some DJs spinning house music, supplemented with some live instruments (trumpets, keyboards, sax). Another swanky cocktail party down, more to go.
Friday was more of the fair, and we also traveled north of town to the Poliform Varrena Factory. While I took lots of pictures of the showrooms there, the factory was off limits for pictures, but the tour was incredible. What an amazing factory. And to be able to see how our kitchen was made from start to finish was awesome.
Saturday, we took in the lighting at the fair (Luce!) and all the experimental stuff. Flos, a big lighting company, had quite a controversial display that couldn’t help but be in your face-political. One of the crappy, spray-painted, last-minute lamps they were pushing was in the shape of a gun, and said something like “happiness is a warm gun.” Cute, but we could have done without all the America sucks references surrounding it. We get it, we suck. Thanks a lot Europe. We did run into that vibe, and it surprised us. People up in arms and wanting to be political by being rude or refusing to do “business” with American companies. I suppose over here we take politics for granted, or only really care when there’s an election. OK, I’m done with my political rambling.
Sunday was more showrooms, including both Boffi showrooms (hot hot hot) and some others I can’t remember off the top of my head. We then shot on over to the Bulgari hotel for some drink$. $ome expen$ive drink$. We then ended up on Cavalini for dinner to end the work week.
The following Monday, Jodi and I hopped a train to Rome. We thought we’d be slick by not buying our return ticket to Paris, and what a mistake. For some reason, it became difficult to get there on a decent train schedule because of strikes, and what not. We ended up deciding to rent a car and drive back to Milan to take a day train to Paris, but I’m getting ahead of myself. After securing our transportation, we ended up just having a nice dinner and going to bed, ready to explore Rome the next day.
Rome was pretty cool. We got to see the Coliseum, Palatino, Old Rome, the Jewish Ghetto, the Panthenon, and all that jazz. Funny story: We were going to go down to the Vatican City, but opted not. As we were walking back, around 3:42pm on Tuesday, we hear lots of bells and see lots of people running/walking the in the opposite direction. What had happened? The new Pope was elected! So, Jodi and I could have been there, cheering and drinking, and cursing and fighting and f—king celebrating with all the other Roman Catholics…..
Wednesday we woke up earlier, jumped in our cute little rental car, and got the heck out of dodge (or Rome). We drove up to Pisa, and the drive was awesome. Jodi drove like a bat out of hell (since there was no speed limit, or we just couldn’t read it,being in Italian and all). Pisa was, sadly, quite a dump, and the only good thing going for it was that leaning tower. After taking the obligatory picture, we were outta there fast. We ended up driving up the coast to Milan, and despite getting stuck in traffic in a huge tunnel, that drive was just amazing. The highway seemed like it was mostly bridges over cities, tunnels through mountains (including mile long tunnels) with amazing views of the sea.
We arrived in Milan late, ate some dinner, and went to bed early for our 6am train to Paris. Upon arriving in Paris, we checked in to the Marriott Champs Elysses, and started living the good life. This had to have been one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed. The room had a view of the Arc de Triumph, from the balcony with 2 french doors over Champs, stairs in the room, leading up to the huge bed, an awesome speaker system, huge bath, and just incredible amenities. Since I happened to be a super-ultra-triple-diamond-Platinum Marriott member, having wasted…err.. spent over 120+ nights in a Marriott hotel in the previous year, they wasted no time in sending up a bottle of wine and cheese, and making sure we had quite a good time.
Since Jodi and I (well maybe just Jodi) are practically Parisian, we didn’t do anything touristy. We just tried to live like Parisians. We did take in a cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu, but mainly went shopping and drinking cocktails and coffee at various trendy places while leisurely strolling around the city. To say it was fabulous would be an understatement.
So, you see, it was a business/pleasure vacation with the emphasis on pleasure. I’m ready to go back.
