Nice pics. Thanks!

thanks - will get organized and post more. What kind of variety could be a Fig with that kind of leaf? Most trees in milan had similar leaves and some were more serrated and complex

I can't identify the figs, but I love the pictures. Thanks.

could be related to this Fico brianzolo http://www.pomonaitaliana.it/pomona/fico_briansolo.htm
http://www.pomonaitaliana.it/pomona/testi/fichi/fico_briansolo.htm

http://testbbcc.glauco.it/SivarsRicerche/scheda.jsp;jsessionid=A6BF7581B4F5F925C4D161FCCDEE6665?codice_ricerca=Z1335881045784RA634&id=3085893&tipo=prodotto&lingua=it_IT

although leaves look more like this
http://www.pomonaitaliana.it/pomona/fico_verdeccio.htm
http://www.pomonaitaliana.it/pomona/testi/fichi/fico_verdeccio.htm

looks like a cool vacation - thank you

Thank you for the pics. I miss Italy for the feel and old architecture. 

Dominick,
Italy has changed dramatically over the last 20-30 years, just like the rest of Europe. It is no longer a homogeneous population but peppered with many diverse ethnicities. Not that Italy was ever homogeneous from region to region as evidenced by its own internal North-South prejudices and bigotry.

The current change has probably afforded the "pollentoni" a chance to divert their animosities towards others aside from the "terroni". The "terroni" now have their own group of people they can look down on.
Sad.

On the bright side, nice photos.

AH-It is what it is- I have my memories from 20 to 25 years ago- I look forward to eventually going back

Beautiful photos, and like others, they bring back memories of great vacations in Italy, and I'd love to go again soon!!

Suzi

Milan has changed dramatically, a lot has been built, and some stuff is very impressive, like the Lombardy region government skyscraper (that also reflects the afternoon sun as a concave mirror in an hazardous way - as it blinded me when I looked at it through my camera). There are many immigrants from the rest of Europe and Asia/Africa/ Latin America. MArkets have changed and there is more of a cosmopolitan feel that i get in NYC as well. Prejudice is everywhere. If you read the NY Post there are always racist comments by some readers at the end of articles of issues like stop and frisk. In the USA social prejudice overlaps with race issues and makes people confused. Wealthy people are prejudiced against the poor and ineducated. Where there is poverty there may be a higher percentage of people that resort to petty crime, even if the vast majority is honest. Southern Italy was traditionally poorer than the north and got a lot of subsidies and people in the north were sick that tax money would just go to that.  In the south there was also more obvious political corruption and organized crime embezzlement so many investments were dead ended. In the south there have been act of violence towards african immigrants that are now the ones working in the fields picking up tomatoes. Anyway Milan has had for decades a large population of southern Italian immigrants as Milan is a city of immigrants for the most part. Many succesful lawyers in Milan have Sicilian heritage. Many southerners achieved success in the north. There are very distinct cultures and languages in Italy. Sicilian, Lombard, Venetian are actually distinct languages. TV and travel now is making Italy more homogenous. 

Here is a clip of 2 contractors from Seriana valley, near Bergamo speaking a mix of Italian and their dialect.. it does not sound at all like the Italian accent you see on the American media

"Bocca al lupo per la provincia di ...." plus a few other scattered words was all I could comprehend.  When I lived in  Padova,  I was fascinated by their incomprehensible (to my ears) Veneto dialect.

Regional language differences are not unique to Italy. Almost every country in the old world have their regional dialects, but it seems more pronounced in Italy.
There is also an  interesting phenomenon known as "campinalismo" that is relatively an Italian thing. 

I traveled in Europe and USA a lot and I feel they are more pronounced in Italy that elsewhere. For example France has always been very centralized around Paris, Italy has been fragmented politically and physically by mountains. during WW2 it took almost 3 years for the Allied soldiers to get from Sicily to Milan ( a WW2 US veteran in Brooklyn told me that Italy was the hardest theater in Europe as the German positions were always on top of the mountains). Compare that to Normandy. 

Also the dialects are probably influenced by the different dominations and I was reading that venetian is closer to catalan than to sicilian.

Italian often identify more with their hometown or province rather than the country itself.  I am from Milan where most speak standard Italian - but I can understand Veneto / Triestino as my paternal grandmother was from Trieste ( there most people speak Triestino rather than standaard Italian). But Bergamasco (from Bergamo) is famous for being hard to understand even for the Milanese - just 25 miles away.

Yeah, Italy is (or used to be) kind of like 30 or so separate regional "countries" in a lot of ways.  Time (and post-Renaissance improvements in communication, travel, etc.) changed a lot of that, but the remnants are still discernible.  I see it still among the descendants of Italian immigrants around me in my town, who still maintain many of the old opinions, even after so many generations out of the old country.

Luckily, interest in figs can bring many of us together anyway.  :-)

Mike

Thank-you for the wonderful photos of Italy, but more for the cultural comments.

I have never had the opportunity to visit Europe, and I will always regret this.  Now, more than ever, I'm aware of what I have missed.

Frank

I find really strange how many immigrants from Italy act here. I shoot a lot for local papers here and I cover Brooklyn. I had to recently shoot a new small amusement park in COney Island. The owner was Sicilian American and he was unfriendly. My name is obviously Italian and I have an accent, although different than the accent of Romans or Southern Italian (actually in Milan several people told me I spoke Italian with an accent like i had been living abroad). This guy in Coney Island did not ask me anything nor said goodbye. Similar stories happened in Bay Ridge when I had to shoot Italian American neighborhoods (all the houses with xmas lights). No one asked me if I was from Italy. Although once i had to shoot the Good Friday procession in Carroll Gardens where most are people in their 70s and 80s born in Mola di Bari, Puglia and they were welcoming. I am curious why so often Italian Americans do not ask me anything about where I come from.But here in Brooklyn most enclaves include immigrants that came from the same small town, so probably they all have small town mentality and look at outsiders with suspicion. There are exceptions - but i had many times that strange first approach. Anyway in Carroll Gardens on that Good Friday while I was speaking with these old Italians I got introduced to this 80 something guy that owns a funeral home. They were telling me that he was not Italian but he was Sicilian. He told me he grew up in NYC, his parents did not teach him Italian (that probably would have not been standard Italian) because he wanted to integrate and that in the 1920s/30sJewish and Italian kids were always beaten by the Irish that had immigrated a generation earlier and had themselves been beaten up by the anglo-saxons when they came to the USA. 

Stefano,
There are many reasons why you may have received the type of reception you describe. Some, you have answered yourself. Italian immigrants were  forced to assimilate as quickly as possible into the "great melting pot" and thus after many generations the only Italianate characteristics left are the surnames. Secondly, your dealing with New Yorkers, "What do I look like, a Library"). Thirdly, you may not be such a personable guy :) (sto scherznado).

Seriously though, being a tri-national myself (Italian born/
Canadian raised/ and American by choice), whenever I run into someone with an Italian name, my inquiries garner a relatively tepid response if they are the descendants of 19th Century immigrants. What are they going to talk to me about? 

Discrimination? You betcha!. The early immigrants were treated like vermin. Sacco and Vanzetti became international symbols of America's bigotry towards Italians.

FMD - I somehow agree... but sometimes I see some Italian Americans staying with their own. Maybe it is more a NYC / NJ thing... The only thing when I had to shoot stuff with Irish Americans, West Indians, Jews etc. in general they were more welcoming and curious. I think many do not recognize my accent as an Italian accent. Yeah I liked that Sacco and Vanzetti movie. At the time many Italians were communist, anarchic or socialist. Many of those Italian Americans I referred to seem on the very conservative spectrum. Italy historically has been politically divided: the south conservative / right wing. The middle like Tuscany / Umbria and so on very left wing, the former communist party ran many local governments, the north a mix, socially progressive but with many wanting lower taxes / business friendly politicians, but also many left wing. 

Um, were those marzipan leaves around that tart? And what was under the figs on top? Did you get to eat that?

Interesting discussion. Twenty-some years ago I mentioned to someone (Sicilian, I think) I was Abruzzese and the reply was "Oh you are a good Italian." What the heck?  In my town, there were not many Italians, so from the stories, it sounded like their small numbers strengthened their affinity for one another. Bu I understand the xenophobia for lack of a better word. I was mugged in Cleveland's Little Italy, because I wasn't from around there.

There is a whole cultural phenomenon around "Good Fellows." the claim is the movie gave an identity template to third-generation Italo-Americans who knew they were Italian, but didn't know what it meant. History reveals that the constant grappling by France, Spain and Hapsburg Austria fragmented the peninsula. Romans did not confer Roman citizenship on the rest of the peninsula for centuries, and then only because it increased the pool of eligible army entrants. and the Florentine - Genoan competition in banking and trade during the early middle ages is legendary.

So OK, Why Can't We ALL Just Get Along?

yeah and the Venetian empire was distinct from the rest of Italy, influenced by Eastern Europe and Asian trade. St Mark's in Venice is different than other churches in other parts of Italy but in Croatia places like Dubrovinik may remind of Venice.

Milanese cuisine was based on rice, pork, cabbage. The Po valley - the largest plains in Italy is the largest rice producer in Europe - I think I read somewhere. Venitian and Tuscan restaurants opened in Milan decades ago and made the local cuisine decline and almost disappear. But Risotto alla Milanese, Cotoletta alla Milanese (Wiener Schnitzel) still remain. 

When Sicilians were part of Greece northern Italy was Celtic, the Romans called it Cisalpine Gaul. Milan had periods of Spanish, Napoleonic, Austrian domination. 

Many Italians wanted a republic but Piedmont conquered and annexed all the independent states. Sicilians were not happy to pay taxes and have to be drafted in the new Italy ruled by Piedmont. The   Hapsburg that ruled over north eastern Italy where more democratic than the Savoy.

Anyway I did not have that fig tart. probably underneath there is some really nice yellow custard and the dough must be what is called pasta frolla. Cova is one of the main historic places in Milan. I saw similar cakes at Ranieri that were about 15 - 20 euros.