Religious Pilgrimage

Since we were in Milan another day, we decided that there are no religious sites for pilgrimage here, so we would do one of our own. We found that the factory that makes our coveted La Pavoni espresso maker is in south Milan; they had a museum and were within walking distance of a train station. We slept in and got up and took the Metro as far south as it went and then changed to a train to take us a few more stops to where we got off. Given the lack of street signs (and my being too cheap to pay for wireless data so we could use Google Maps effectively), we walked a few blocks too far before we decided that we had overshot the street we were looking for and turned around. Finding the street, we also faced a local pizza joint, where we stopped for lunch. Cappuccinos and Margarita pizza was ordered and we waited in the simple dining room with the house painters and old men who were in for lunch.

The food came and the cappuccinos were great and the slices of pizza were huge and were more of a deep dish style than you would get in Southern Italy (more like what we would consider Chicago style).

A short walk down past an elementary school and park found us facing a sign on the corner pointing to “La Pavoni.” We turned down the street and went through an open gate and into a small three story industrial building. In the entry there was just an elevator and stairs. We went up to the third floor and there was a reception desk with no one around, even after we rang the bell. A couple of minutes later, just after 1:00 p.m., the workers came back in and were very gracious to us. They showed us around and gave us some espresso. There really was no museum, but just various old machines in various parts of the office building, including the office of the “Director Generale,” who was on the telephone, but graciously allowed the English speaking lady who was showing us around to come in and we were able to take pictures of the machines in his office.

We asked about what we could buy and they showed us a list of things, including espresso and cappuccino cups and tampers. The tampers were not as nice as those Bob had sent us, so we passed on those and took a package of each style of cups. After we paid, the lady took us down to the warehouse to pick them up.

Our style of pilgrims are fairly rare and they mostly show around distributors, but they were very nice and it was a fun trip.