A day at Expo Milan 2015

Expo Milan 2015, the Universal Exposition that Italy has been hosting since the 1 may, will close soon its doors, the 31 October. If you haven’t visited it yet or if you won’t be able to go to Milan, have a look at this post and I will tell you something about it and my recent experience there.

The futuristic Italian Pavilion

Expo Milano 2015 is the world biggest event ever realized about food and nutrition.

The exposition area is 1,1 millions of square meters huge and hosts more than 140 countries, International Organizations and sponsors.

The focus of Expo Milano 2015 is Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.

During the 6 months of exhibition, more than 20 millions of people are supposing to visit the Expo Milan and the participating countries are showing them the best of its technologies, innovations and ideas to give an answer to a real essential need: be able to guarantee healthy and sufficient food to all the mankind, respecting the planet and its balance, for a sustainable future for everyone.

The Decumano

The exhibition area is created as an island surrounded by a water canal. It takes inspiration from an ancient roman Castrum. The most of pavilions look on to the two main avenues that cross the area: the Decumano and the Cardo.

The Expo Milan area is divided into cluster and thematic areas.

The nine clusters gathers communities united by a common important theme or food specialty: Rice, Cocoa and Chocolate, Coffee, Fruits and Legumes, Spices, Cereals and Tubers, Bio-Mediterraneum, Islands and Sea and Food, Arid zones.

The five Thematic Areas include attractions and multi-sensorial and educational experiences for adults and children. They are the Pavilion Zero (that proposes an introduction to the Expo Milano 2015 and a journey to discover how much the human beings have produced, the transformation of nature and the different cultures of food), Future Food District, Children’s Park, Biodiversity Park, Arts and Food).

At Expo Milan 2015 you can also discover and taste the best dishes of the world and discover the culinary excellences of the tradition of each country.

All around pavilions and Decumano Avenue it’s plenty of small restaurant and little trucks that sell traditional food. We tried Spain tapas for lunch, a typical American chocolate donuts and an Italian espresso coffee. Even into each stands there are typical restaurants of the country. You can choose the food you like the most and taste it.

The calendar of shows and events is very rich: not only in the exhibition area but also all around the city, as for example did the Tuscany Region with its Out-of-Expo Milan stand in the suggestive spot of the Chiostri dell’Umanitaria of San Barnaba.

You need patience to enter the biggest pavilions (Japan, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, United Arab Emirates, Korea) because there are long queues, but many others have no queues so they are easily accessible and are as interesting as the biggest ones.

The wooden Japanese Pavilion

We reach the fair by tram from the city center and we entered at 9 am when the gates opened, to rush to Japan Pavilion. We were curious to see it, being considered as one the best stand of the entire fair. After only 2,5 hours we finally got in this futuristic stand with 4 different stages with shows made of lights and suggestive images and where we also taste the lunch of the future.

In the middle of the English beehive

Later we saw the less crowded pavilions of Russia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Netherland, Belgium, England, Brazil, and the cluster of coffee with the little stand of Guatemala, Rwanda and Ethiopia where we had a coffee tasting listening to traditional music and surrounded by people wearing traditional clothes.

At the end of the day we stopped for a rest in front of the huge Italian Pavilion tasting some Parmigiano cheese with Tuscan red wine. And we finish our expo Milan day admiring the stunning Life Tree, its beautiful architecture and the show of lights, music and water that every hour delights the visitors.

One of the corporate Pavilion

Personally, the two things I love the most are the design of many pavilions and the innovation proposed by Belgium about grow plants using the polluted water of fish aquarium.

My suggestion, if you are thinking to go to Expo Milan 2015, is to take at least two days to visit it. In just one day you cannot see all interesting things this huge exhibition propose, because of the crowd and the queues and the many good things to appreciate.

And maybe, after the Expo, come down to Tuscany to visit one of the most beautiful region of the world.