And Now For the Star of Our Show

Day 3, 4 and 5 - Expo 2015

The World’s Fair

The whole reason we are in Italy in 2015.

The greatly anticipated, hugely planned for event.

What was our first impression?

 

Meh~

 

No, really, all that build up and we were rather underwhelmed.

 

(Do I have to pull this guy out again?)

 

But let me tell you about it.

 

The Vancouver Expo in 1986 was magical.  The park meandered around the waterfront.  The pavilions were full of happy people from the country it represented.  We had a little “passport” that we had stamped at each pavilion.  There were rides, food booths, gift shops…..

The Milan Fairground was a one mile long strip.  The pavilions were rather sparse.  Food booths were hidden (ironic since the theme was Feeding the World)  AND THERE WAS ALMOST NO SHOPPING OPPORTUNITES!

Let me pause here to acknowledge that I am a complete flibbertigibbet…it is all about the bling with me!  I admit it!

 

But let me start at the beginning.  We had a hotel on the correct Metro Line for the fair.  Since the Fairgrounds were so far out of town, the normal “urban” ticket did not work, you had to have an extended ticket.  Regular fare was 1.50 Euro, to the Fairgrounds it was 2.50 Euro.  I had purchased and printed out our tickets Expo prior to leaving the US.  And of course, had them in my handy binder.

The Expo opened at 10 AM each morning, but we were not sure how long it would take for us to get there.  We left the hotel at 8 and had a nice breakfast at a bar

 

Note: bars in Italy are more like Starbucks and not taverns/saloons

 

We then hopped on the Metro to do our daily do-si-do.  While we were on the correct Metro line, it splits near our hotel, so we had to ride East 4 stops, and then cross over to catch the West bound line.  Knowing the end stop of the line you want is very important.

The ride took about a half an hour, and we were there.

 

Well, almost….

 

First we had to figure out how to get out of the Metro Station.

 

 

Then we had to walk past the ticket booths

Then we had to stand in line at the security gate.  They x-rayed our backpack and sent us through a metal detector.  I had the passports in my money belt, and they set things off.  The guard had me show him what was in the belt, and did not require it to go through the x-ray machine.  We then had to walk over a big bridge and past another entry gate and FINALLY we were at the Fairgrounds.

 

 

Phew!  We estimated that it was about a mile from the Metro train to the actual fair grounds.

 

It was also May.  May is when school’s in Italy take field trips.  And if you are a school in Italy, and you are planning a trip, and there is a World’s Expo nearby….

 

There were a lot of kids.

 

Flash back to 2012, Santorini Greece.  There was a long line for the cable car back down to the ship.  It was a nice day and we had time, so we thought we would just walk.  Down 692 steps.  That the donkeys use.  Donkeys don’t wear diapers.  Donkeys walk where ever they want.

 

This is when I learned BF is a Donkey Whisperer!  No, really!  The donkeys would approach, ready to knock us out of the way, and he would raise his hand and shoo them aside.  Donkeys don’t typically listen, they are like teenagers that way.

 

 

So, back in 2015, at the Expo fairgrounds, BF brushes off his Donkey Whispering Skills and gets great hoards of children to move.  See, I told you Donkeys were like Teenagers.

 

We wandered down one side of the fairgrounds, going into Pavilions as the mood struck us.  We had an indifferent lunch at a deli.  Food was one of the challenges, ironic for a Expo’s who theme is feeding the world.  Most of the pavilions had a café, but they were not obvious, and we did some wandering around looking for a place to eat often.

Most of the Pavilions did not have a gift shop, which struck us as odd.  They might have had an item or two for sale, but I really expected to see food related items all over the place.  There was also not a general Expo gift shop.  So there were no tshirts or any other kind of touristy items.  It did feel like this kind of thing was being discouraged.  It may have been that since we were there the second week, deliveries were still expected, but we really didn’t see a place for a gift shop.  There was a very small shop in downtown Milan, that had a few Expo items, but nothing that tempted us.

Down one of the side aisles there was the Tree of Life, that once an hour, played music, lit up, and had a fountain.  This was a nice place to rest.

 

We left at 5 the first day, and had dinner at the little restaurant near our hotel.  We went back in the afternoon the second day and stayed until after dark, to see things lit up.  The third day we went in the morning and finished up all the areas we hadn’t visited.

 

There we are, at Expo!

 

My next posts will be on some of the individual Pavilions.