Unique Cheesy Pizza of Spontini Milano

There are more Pizza lovers in the world than any other single food. These come in many forms, hard crust or soft, spicy or extremely spicy, beef, chicken, pork or even vegetable. All sell alike to satisfy taste buds of pizza lovers. 

But if you go to a pizza shop and are offered only one type of pizza and when you reluctantly accept to eat, you instantly fall in love with that type of pizza and you always walk up to the same pizza shop?

Well although I am not a much pizza man but my children surely are. While in Milano, Italy my two sons had a wind of a particular pizza shop which incidentally was located very close to the hotel we were staying. So we walked over to the place and ordered the only kind of pizza available and waited patiently, watching others whose orderd had been served eating their order with much delight. The cheesy stuff was enough to fill my mouth with all the water of my body.

Oh I forgot to tell the name of the place, but you would guessed it from the photos I have shared above and in between the post - Spontini Milano  !! From the Tuscan “Cibi Cotti” rotisserie, to Pizzeria Spontini, pizza by the slice since 1953, the name is the place for real pizza lovers.

 Waiting for the surprise of our lives

And when our order was served, I reluctantly calved out a small piece which came to my mouth with long cheezy strings. And when I tasted it, I fell in love with this cheeze only pizza isntantly. It melted in my mouth. giving me the joy of my life. 

The piece served looked so big and at first glance I thought I would I be able to finish it. But when the eating got going, the place was empty in no time and I instantly rushed to counter to order more for us.

The huge size of the pizza piece can be well imagined from the photos shared above and pizza lovers would know how enormous one piece was. And One thing that amazed me was that the pizza was sold by weight and not by size. And pizza lovers both locals and tourists were buying in large quantities for obvious reasons.

So when you are in Milano Italy next time, do not skip the meal of your life at Spontini Milano - and if you miss, you will regret reading my post for the second time. Remember there is only pizza shop in Milano and that is Pizzeria Spontini.

Photo Header | All other photos were shot by me at Spontini Milano - 2014

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Leaning Tower of Pisa - is still leaning

Our next day destination was Pisa to see the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa. Just like the Eiffel Tower, I have heard of this historic monument since my childhood. In fact when I heard of it being leaning, I wondered whether it would be there when I grow up as then there were predictions of its falling down one day. But thankfully, it is still leaning and has no signs of falling and I finally had a chance to see it in all its grandeur and might.

My wife and son standing outside our Motel before leaving for Pisa

 The early morning deserted roads of Milan

We left Milan by road and headed towards Pisa - distance of some 285 kilometers and took us three and half hours to reach the town of Pisa. As I mentioned in my previous post, the roads in Italy are not of very quality. But road leading to Pisa was very pathetic - specially the last 20-30 kilometers and the speed limit was 30 KMPH due to its patchy and bumpy road. I wondered why the Italians could not have it repaired as Pisa is one of the famous tourist attractions of Italy.

The Pisa Tower (Torre di Pisa) or the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre pendente di Pisa) is a campanile, or freestanding bell tower which is part of the city's cathedral surrounded by high rising walls. The tower rising to a height of some 55.86 metres developed a fault while it was still being built but for unknown reasons it continued to be built the same and was leaning right from the outset. Thus on the lower side, it stands 55.85 metres (the leaning side) and 55.67 metres on the higher side. Many efforts have been made, specially between 1990-2001 by putting counter weights to stabilize its unintended tilt. As of now the tower is horizontally displace 3.9 metres from its center.

We entered the Pisa town and the sign posts took us to the compound where the cathedral and the Pisa's Tower are located. Vehicles, other than special, are not allowed to enter the compound, so we parked our car outside the compound in a large car park. And it was here that I first caught a glimpse of the Tower for the first time in my life.

As we started moving towards the compound, the view of the Tower became cleaerer and seeing it bit by bit added to our enthusiasm till we reached inside the compound and saw its full might.

As per Wikipedia, the construction of the tower occurred in three stages over 199 years. Work on the ground floor of the white marble campanile began on August 14, 1173. The tower began to sink after construction had progressed to the second floor in 1178. 

The cathedral compound was already full with tourists and visitors enjoying the Pisa's landmark in full bright sunny day and mind you even in October it was quite hot and precipitating.

 

 My family and me joining them in a slefie

 The architecture from the close quarters - the entrance to the right is used for those adventuring to stair up to the top 

 The Pisa Tower side by side the city's cathedral

Like all historic and tourist intensive places, there are shops selling souvenirs and clothes exclusive to the city besides a number of eateries selling local Italian cuisines, pizza being the most sought out dish by the tourists. We too bought a few souvenirs and ate freshly baked pizza - something that we had never tasted like before.

 My wife poses in front of one of the souvenir's shops

 A homemade tram for the city tour of tourists

The old building dating back more than two hundred years now house motels and shops on ground floor

We had to travel to Florence to see the famous statue of David and thus hurriedly packed up our visit to Pisa - adding yet another nostalgia to our memory lane for it may not be possible to revisit Pisa again as there are many other destinations in Italy yo visit. But it is not all for Pisa visit as I will talk about the bronze man of Pisa in my next post. 

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Mambo Italiano - Here we come Italy !!

Sometimes childhood dreams and memories come true unexpectedly as I always dreamed of visiting Switzerland and the day came when I was almost sixty to visit Switzerland and walked through this heavenly country. Like Switzerland, Italy too had been on my wish list since my childhood, a wish that sprouted by seeing View Master slides of Venice, Rome and Pompeii and of course the famous song  Mambo Italiano, sung by many artists including the famous Dean Martin, which my father used to play on his HMV gramophone - the days of 78 RPM vinyl records. 

Coming back to Italy, after staying two memorable days in Switzerland, we drove to Italy and headed for Milan or Milano as the Italians call it. Due to shortage of time as we had to rush back to Germany where my son was studying and had his exams coming,and could not got to Rome, Venice or Pompeii which I always wanted to visit and see the dreadful scenes of that horrible day when it was covered under volcanic ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. I will still make an endeavorer when I visit Germany next time.

Thus due to shortage of time, our visit remained restricted to Milan and a visit to the still leaning tower of Pisa. We desecrated from the lush green mountains of Switzerland covered with low clouds to the Italian plains - feeling an almost 180 change in temperature and landscape as Italy is devoid of vegetation and one goes on and one for hundreds of miles with barren landscape or scanty vegetation covered with dust. We were lucky that our hotel was very near the city center and made it easy for us to move about easily, though parking of car was always a problem. 

 

 

 

 

 

The roads in Italy are not as good as Germany or Switzerland - in fact after coming from Italy I do not lament about state of affairs of roads in Pakistan as I now find these much better than those in Italy. But despite all odds, Italy is a fashionable country where stores and malls are flooded with latest women and men fashion, clothes, bags and shoes. And Milan is famous for its fashion stores for its second richest city after Paris both in wealth and fashion. It is also well known for many international fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair.

Soon after reaching our hotel and freshening up, we hit the nearest markets from where my wife bought a number of bags, a treasure she still cherishes. In fact the show cases artfully loaded with bags and shoes are so tempting that one cannot resist these and coming out of shops with more bags in hands than we had before. 

While my wife was busy looking for her tastes, my sons were looking for Italian pizza and we soon found a place and the cheese pizza we had was something I had never tasted like that before. I will talk about it in my next post. We remained on the roads and nearby places for as long as we could walk and enjoyed the first night in Milan to our best.

 

 
The orange ATM 1500 tram is an iconic symbol of Milan which zooms past and one has to be very careful when crossing roads

 

 

I do not know whether dirty dancing comes in the ambit of Mambo style of dancing, but when the Mambo Italiano was first sung, there certainly weren't dirty dancing and from today's standards, the mambo style of dancing was certainly very romantic and refreshing

Those who haven't heard of the song Mambo Italiano, can now click play and listen to this beautiful song starring once Hollywood's darling Sophia Loren:

I will talk more of my stay in Italy in coming posts - so don't go away!!

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Goodbye Switzerland

It has been a while that I last wrote about my Schengen Travelogue and could not continue writing about the rest of the countries and places I visited during my memorable travel a few years ago. In my last post, I wrote about the Zürich Film Festival which was our last destination in Switzerland before saying good bye to my childhood dream country and travel to Italy.

After two days in Switzerland, though we should have stayed a month there and I wished I could had it not been for the exams of my son studying in Germany to whom we had gone visiting, we left our motel in Lichtensteig, a small town some 57 kilometers due east of Zürich early morning and set our course to Italy - our next destination.

We got up early morning with a bright sunshine, falling on the contours of lush green hilly landscape, and packed up all set to leave, though really not wanting to. Before we moved out of the motel, I drank the last cup of hot fuming Swiss coffee while sitting in the motel balcony feeling the cool scented breeze and thanking the Allah Almighty for having afforded me to come and visit Switzerland - a heaven on earth indeed.

 My wife and boys posing  just outside our motel

 Filling up for Italy

 Spectacular view of Lake Zürich

 Lake Zürich behind, we preserving our presence for forever

 

 

 Don't hit the cows !!

The family selfie before we moved on to find the spectacular view of the Uri Lake to our right. I wish we had time to go down and had the ride in the steamer which we could spot from the above.

Uri Lake with its ocean blue and green hues was a spectacular scene watching it almost from the above. We could sail boats, motor boats wading through its blue waters while big steamers also sailed bye us and we could see tourists enjoying their sail - something of a life time remembrance. 

The photo below with sun rays peeing between the two mountain crest simply spellbound me. The photo did not come out as it was there right in front of me but is imprinted on my memory - something that can be described in words.

Skirting the mountain peaks obscured by clouds, we finally started to descend on our way to Italy. Those who have traveled by road from Switzerland to Italy would know a stark difference between the landscape of both countries. While Swiss landscape was lush green, captivating and refreshing, the plains leading to Italy were devoid of vegetation and landscape to enjoy. From then on to Milan, our next three-days stop in Italy was straight drive - looking front only.

 We entered Milan or Milano as they call in Italian with refreshing memories of Switzerland and looked forward to Italian hospitality, music and dances. 

But passing through Switzerland was not over yet - upon return from Italy, we again passed through Switzerland and Austria, though briefly on our way back to Germany. I will write about Italy in my coming few posts and going back -so don't go away !!

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