Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News
I know it is only February, but in my book is already time to think of summer vacation, if I want to catch good prices on hotels and air fair.
I am going to Europe in May, weather and people have a good disposition in the spring.
I was watching the travel channel a few days ago and discovered a new person who produced his show in various locations of Europe. I really liked the sui generis places he visited with his local travel guides, outside the common beaten path, “very outside” I would say. I never thought someone would spend vacation days in a prison cell just for the thrill of experiencing a cell, but apparently there are people who like to go to extremes. Paul Merten, a British man with a sharp British humor, in fact took his travel show to Germany in a prison building remade into a hotel. The guest of this hotel stay in a real cell with only a bed and a sink, the bathroom is outside the room and food is served through a small hole in the door. Expensive and depressive way to spend a vacation! Absurd, although interesting to watch, I think it will remain a T.V. show for me.
Next stop was in Mejorada del Campo near Madrid where he visited the site of a large cathedral being built since 48 years ago. The builder Don Justo 84 years old is a farm man, not an architect, nor a designer. Don Justo was studying to become a priest in his young age, but he got sick with tuberculosis and promised God that if he got better, who have built a large cathedral. His only help is Angel, a guy who also has no former training in masonry and construction. Don Justo built his cathedral without plans, he designs as he goes along and does what he deems urgent in any given day.
He receives donations from private people who admire his devotion to God and has used up all of his money to buy construction material, but he has never received serious subsidy from the city, the church, or political affiliations. He built the large cathedral without cranes or heavy equipments, that’s very impressive. He thinks forty-eight years of his work will be bulldozed after his death, as the building has been considered unsafe and no one wants to take responsibility for the construction. It is an amazing story, a lesson of endurance for the young generation. I better make it there this year before it gets demolished.
I wasn’t planning of going to Milan, but a little curiosity in Via Monte Napoleone will make me stretch my route. Near Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the world oldest and glamorous open shopping mall, there is Dirk Bikkembergs’s shop, a Belgium designer whose fashion creations are inspired by football. This is not what will attract me there, but the unique shopping experience the shop offers. Upstairs inside of the shop lives Andrea, a handsome Italian soccer player for the local Brera team. Bikkembergs’s marketing managers thought it would be a good P.R. if the player lived in the store.
His sleeping quarter painted in red is located upstairs among the men clothing racks; shoppers can see him in bed resting or running freely around the store in his underwear. The walls of what he calls his home are all transparent glass.
His bathroom is also upstairs in plain view, the only thing keeping people out is the velvet rope with the sign “Private” and the newspapers covering the glass walls.
He has a well-equipped gym overlooking downtown Milan fashion district and across a bank building. I am sure there are plenty women who aspire to get a job in that bank just to have the opportunity to glimpse at him. His living room is located downstairs in the middle of the store and so is his expensive car parked in the window of the store with all the merchandise around. People try clothes on while he walks around semi-nude.
This is just too bazaar, but that’s how celebrities live. To me the Italian player seems more of a circus phenomenon the fashion company is exploiting for marketing purposes. After all, Belgian clothes would be difficult to sell in the fashion capital of Italy.
If you want to know more about travel to Italy, I am here at your disposition, just leave your name in the box below.
Ciao,
Valentina
- Valentina Cerasola
Copyright © 2011 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved
Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer and former Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe since 1990. She blends well fashion with interiors and know how to color the world of her clients. She has been described as “the colorist” and loves to create the unusual.
She is the author of RED, the forthcoming book on the subject of Colors, due to be published soon.
