Warning: this post has a high floral content.
I’m going to tell you the real reason I went to Milan, and why I came back three days later full of smiles.
And tulips.
Milan, April 2017
I’m always here talking about art, artists, places to see, sites of culture and history. I write about them because that is what I’m passionate about, but the truth is that sometimes I set off for reasons that have nothing to do with art and culture.
Usually I plan my visits and study the itineraries before leaving. Lately I leave a lot to chance: I savour the places I visit and discover them slowly, without expectations. And then there are other things I like, in fact there are many things I like. I like the sea, I like looking at views from above, I like animals, I like swimming and diving, I like the sun and I like flowers.
What has this got to do with my trip to Milan? Let me tell you right away.
My friend Raffaella moved to Milan for a master’s a few months ago. One day I saw that at Cornaredo, a few kilometres from the Lombard capital, they were planting a field of tulips. I wrote to my friend and asked what she thought: “they’re my favourite flowers,” she replied. The project is called Tulipani Italiani and was born from the idea of Edwin Koeman, a Dutchman from a family of tulip growers, who wanted to bring a little piece of the Netherlands to Italy. Not only can you admire these flowers, you can also pick them!
I like more or less all flowers, but tulips especially. I have never been to Holland during the blooming season (and I can’t wait to go!) and I had never seen a whole field of them. So we kept an eye on the event and, as soon as the first you pick tulip field in Italy opened its gates, I booked the train to Milan.
When I started telling people I was going to Lombardy for three days, the question came naturally from relatives and friends:
“but why are you going to Milan?”
“I’m going to see the tulips.”
In truth I had no idea what was waiting for me.
The tulip field today: what has changed
Since this is the question I get asked most often, let’s clear it up straight away: the field is no longer at Cornaredo.
That first field opened in 2017, the very year I went, and it was the first you pick tulip field in Italy. In 2019 Tulipani Italiani moved to Arese, still in the Milan hinterland, where today it covers a couple of hectares with more than four hundred varieties, and in the meantime a second field was born at Grugliasco, on the edge of Turin.
There is however important news if you are planning the trip: for the 2026 season both fields are closed, and the official website gives the next appointment for mid-March 2027. So if you have seen the photos going round and talked yourself into going, check the website first: the bloom depends on the weather and the dates change every year.
The mechanism, when the fields are open, is simple: you pay an entrance fee, take a basket and pick the flowers you want, paying per stem. A couple of small tips learned on the spot: go on a weekday and early in the morning, because on weekends at peak bloom it is packed and the finest rows of tulips are stripped fast; and wear shoes you don’t mind dirtying, because the field is real soil and if it has rained you notice immediately.
The Salone del Mobile, by accident
I arrived in Milan too late for the BIT tourism fair and in the middle of the Salone del Mobile. I had never taken an interest in this event, which in fact draws hundreds of thousands of people every year and is the most important furniture fair in the world. My friend is also an architect and for her master’s she had to attend various conferences and exhibitions of the Fuorisalone too.
This is worth clarifying, because it escapes anyone outside the field: the Salone is the fair proper, held at Rho Fiera with a ticket and for years reserved for trade visitors; the Fuorisalone is everything that happens across the city during the same days, around Brera, Tortona and Isola, and it is largely free and open to everyone. If you happen to be in Milan on those April days, the Fuorisalone is effectively a city-wide design festival you can walk around without paying anything. The one downside: hotels triple their prices and the trains fill up, so either book well ahead or avoid that week.
The result was that I found myself essentially gatecrashing a group of designers and architects at a great many events. Needless to say, as well as being fun it was also incredibly stimulating! Seeing household objects and pieces of furniture that were innovative, original and designed by artists was very interesting. I have furnished I don’t know how many houses on my various travels but I had never come so close to the world of interior design!
I also changed and did my make-up in a public toilet after spending the day out and about and having climbed Milan Cathedral. I admired contemporary art shows and astonishing installations of lights and furnishings. I tasted cocktails whose names I can’t pronounce.
Some practical information
Since this account keeps being read by people organising a weekend in Milan, here are the few things that genuinely help.
The tulip field is easily reached by car, while by public transport it is more awkward: from Milan you need a train or a metro plus a bus, so allow a good hour and check the connections.
On the Duomo terraces, which remain in my view the finest thing to do in the city: you go up on foot or by lift and you really walk among the spires, with the Madonnina above your head. It is the only attraction in this account with serious queues, so it is worth getting the ticket in advance; incidentally, entry to the cathedral requires shoulders and knees covered, a detail that catches plenty of people out in summer.
Finally, spring: April is the right month for Milan, because it coincides with the bloom and with design week, but precisely for that reason it is also the most expensive and crowded moment of the year. If you are only interested in the flowers, aim for late March.
Stepping outside your comfort zone and going out, even by just a few kilometres, setting off on a trip, following a passion, doing something simply because you feel like it, always brings something unexpected. And the unexpected makes you discover things about yourself you never imagined.
Between tulips, churches and cocktails, between aperitivi in incredible venues, space-age lamps and thoroughly unusual installations, my three days in Milan were perhaps less artistic than my average trip, but certainly unforgettable!
And you, would you go to Milan just for a field of flowers?
