Milan

This Month in Milan (March):

Shopping: Your one-stop designer shop is, believe it or not, H&M. Many branches have begun to stock high-end signature pieces such as Roberto Cavalli, Sonia Rykiel and Jimmy Choo shoes, all at low prices (1 Piazza San Babila, tel: 02 7601 7222 and 31 Corso Vittorio Emanuele, tel: 02 8909 6303).

Sightseeing: The Festival of African Cinema is the only event of its kind in Italy, celebrating African, as well as Asian and South American filmmaking and featuring more than 80 productions. Taking place on 15-21 March, it's based on the Spazio Oberdan (2 Viale Vittorio Veneto, tel: 02 7740 6300).

Key areas: The Navigli district has plenty of bars, restaurants and clubs to entertain you, as well as brightly lit craft stalls. Based around the surviving canals, it's firmly established as Milan's party venue. It's an interesting area by day, too, with antique stalls selling collectables and second-hand goods of all kinds. On the last Sunday of the month there is the Mercato dell'Antiquariato - a huge outdoor flea market with more than 400 stalls.

Day trips: Only a 30-minute drive from Milan is Pavia, a pretty town steeped in history. Dating back to Roman times, Pavia's architecture reflects two millennia of culture. On the north side of the city you can see the 17th-century Spanish ramparts, while the Ponte Coperto, the covered bridge over the river Ticino, may look ancient but is actually a mock up of the original, which was destroyed by allied bombing in 1944. Check out the paintings by Bellini, Correggio and Tiepolo at the art gallery, the Pinacoteca. Piazza Vittoria, in the city centre, is a good place for a meal or a drink.

Milan News & Gossip

San Pellegrino Terme Spa

San Pellegrino may be one of the most recognised mineral waters in the world, but the town from which it gets its name hasn't fared quite as well. While the San Pellegrino brand has grown to rival labels such as Perrier and Evian, San Pellegrino Terme, the source of the water, has fallen into sharp decline. Once considered the epitome of glamour and high fashion, over the years it has become an area of high unemployment and under-investment. Aside from the Milanese who own country homes amid the beautiful hills here, few people now visit this pretty, once-prosperous town on the banks of the Brembo River, 75km north of Milan.

All this could be about to change, however, as a major €130m regeneration project in the lush Brembana Valley gets underway. Plans unveiled in 2007 for the town and surrounding area include a world-class spa, a huge leisure and retail complex, seven-star hotel and residential accommodation, alongside a general upgrading and sprucing up of facilities and infrastructure.

Work has already begun to restore the historic Grand Hotel and Casino to their former fin-de-siècle glory and the hope is that San Pellegrino Terme will once more become a world-class tourist destination in time for the Milan Expo in 2015. The event is expected to attract an estimated 30 million international visitors and the local authorities want the town to be a glittering showcase of innovative construction and design on Milan's doorstep.

"The objective of the regeneration of San Pellegrino Terme is to re-launch it primarily as a tourist destination with a view to also relieving the problem of unemployment in the area," says Vittorio Milesi, the town's deputy mayor. "This will involve the whole of the Brembana Valley, including ski resorts such as Foppolo, Valleve and Carona, and the opportunities for summer tourism in the lively resorts of the Serina and Taleggio valleys."

Milesi says those involved in the redevelopment are hoping to capitalise not only on the globally famous San Pellegrino brand, but also the fact that the area has historic significance. "It's a unique and fascinating place due to its long history as a renowned spa town, which saw the pinnacle of its popularity at the beginning of the 20th century," he explains, "and it's situated in an enviable position near the mountains and on the banks of the river."

San Pellegrino Terme's naturally mineral-rich hot springs have been considered a health cure since at least the Middle Ages. In 1509 Leonardo Da Vinci reportedly visited the town to take the waters and pronounced them "miraculous". However, it was in the late 1800s, as the popularity of spa holidays took off with health-conscious Victorians, that the area's fortunes increased dramatically. By the turn of the last century wealthy visitors were flocking from all over Europe and further afield. They came to stroll along the town's riverside boulevards, gamble at the new casino and cure their ailments in its state-of-the-art bathhouse, where healing springs rose from deep underground at a temperature of 22°C. The bottling and international export of the famous San Pellegrino water increased the town's cachet and stunning art nouveau architecture (or Liberty style as it is known in Italy) appeared, giving the place a grand and elegant appearance.

After World War I, however, the town's popularity gradually waned. Fashion moved on and spa towns fell out of favour. San Pellegrino Terme lost its rail line and casino, and consequently its tourists. But spa tourism has made a comeback in recent years, with every top-class hotel and resort boasting a sophisticated "oasis". With its health-giving waters on tap, it now seems the right time for San Pellegrino Terme to take advantage of this natural asset to relaunch itself.

Antonio Percassi, director of the Percassi Group development company involved in the construction of the site, believes the project will return economic life to the Brembana Valley. He says the casino and Grand Hotel are two of the most spectacular Liberty-style buildings in Italy and predicts the planned new spa will be the "most beautiful in the world". Coupled with luxury retail outlets, fine restaurants and leisure facilities, he is convinced they will put the region back on the international map.

He may well be right. Few projects anywhere in Europe have quite the backing this one does. The plans are being pushed forward by a consortium of private contractors, which includes Luciano Benetton and governmental bodies including the mayor of San Pellegrino Terme and the presidents of the province of Bergamo and the region of Lombardy. All are aware of the need to offer something bigger and better than tourists can find elsewhere, without impacting on San Pellegrino Terme's heritage.

It may be a difficult goal to accomplish, as the chosen design for both the spa and new urban quarter, though both stylish and striking, is one of stark modernity. The spa in particular, the centrepiece of the entire project, stands out above the town with its jagged form contrasting with the original curvaceous design of the neighbouring Grand Hotel. Built on the site of the former San Pellegrino bottling plant, which has since been relocated, the cubist structure is intended to mirror the natural landscape that surrounds it. "My inspiration was the relationship with the geographical context of the area," says Dominique Perrault, the French architect who has designed the spa and master plan for the new district. "For me the most important aspect was the mountain and landscape. The new building will appear as though it is a pile of rocks that have fallen from the mountainside."

Elegant rocks they are too, inset with large panels of coloured glass to let light stream through, giving the effect of cathedral windows. Early images show sleek, minimalist treatment rooms and a grand entrance flanked by large waterfalls. Thermal bathing pools will be cavern-like spaces with views across the river to the casino, and the interior is intended to host one of the highest-quality treatment centres in the world.

There has already been criticism from some quarters, including local residents, that the new development will be incongruous with the rest of the town and will spoil not only its character, but its beautiful setting. Those in favour of the changes are quick to point out that, until this year, the most important historic buildings were under-used and falling into disrepair and that San Pellegrino Terme was dying. "We're changing the urban fabric of what is at present a sleepy village, where the factories and hotels had closed, and giving it new life and a better economy," says Perrault, who is responsible for the design of projects such as the European Courts of Justice in Luxembourg. "We have integrated the new and historic to create an organic whole. To develop an exchange between what already exists and the modern design."

"The characteristics of the town will not be altered in a drastic way. In fact one of the main aims of the project is to renovate the historic casino and the Grand Hotel," agrees mayor Milesi. "We're regenerating what was a thriving spa town after 100 years, keeping the old charm intact while introducing new elements in line with modern times." And if all goes to plan the town could once more find itself the destination of choice for the fashionable set, famous for more than just its water. "Everyone knows the San Pellegrino name," says Perrault, "but no one knows where it comes from. Part of the challenge here is to put the town of San Pellegrino Terme, the source of this water, back on the map."

Milan Trivia

• March: In a small chapel in the church of San Fedele is a fresco of a Madonna. She became known as the Madonna of the Dancers after ballerinas from La Scala began bringing her bouquets of flowers after a performance, as a thanksgiving.

• February: Not many people realise that Milan was once a port. The Darsena, its dockyard, was the most heavily used inland dock complex in Europe in the 19th century.

• January: Unlike other Italian cities, Milan and its province have been steadily shrinking. This is because surrounding towns such as Lodi and Lecco have become provinces themselves.

• Print page
• Email page
• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Google
• Reddit
• Technorati
• Twitter
• Yahoo!