Expo 2015 and Circuito Città d'Arte della Pianura Padana

"Feeding the planet, Energy for life": this is the theme of Expo 2015, with which Milan and Italy open their doors to the world.
Just like Paris built the Eiffel Tower in 1889 to inaugurate the International Exposition, today Milan is completing the exhibition hub at Rho Fiera. The whole country is in fact stepping up for this event and the cities of the Circuito Città d'Arte della Pianura Padana are geographically in 'pole position'.
It has been calculated that for Expo 2015 from May 1st to October 31st 2015 over 20 million visitors will come to Italy, of which 30% - about 6 million - from abroad. Mainly from France, Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. These are the target users of the Circuito Città d'Arte, which can offer the perfect amenities for a business trip.
All cities are strategically located near the Expo 2015 venue, with car rides of only one or two hours. They are also well connected through trains and bus services.
The cities of the Circuito offer historic city centres that are people-friendly and can be visited on foot without long queues at the entrance. Here you can taste genuine Italian hospitality, with special attention to the needs of tourists and a warm welcome. Your Expo experience will find here its perfect conclusion.
Fully consistent with the Expo guidelines, natural resources from the territory will be on show during the best time of the year: cultivated fields, rivers and lakes, parks and natural reserves are the features of agriculture, fishing, and cattle rearing, and of food tradition. The farmhouses that are still operating in Pianura Padana can also become didactic farms to learn how to produce and distribute typical products from the recent past.
If we follow the route from raw materials to their processing, we will encounter the gourmet foods that make our territory famous worldwide, and each city of the Circuito has its own. Parma gained the nickname of 'Italian food valley capital city', besides hosting the headquarters of the European Food Safety Authority. Piacenza nearby is just as good, with its cured meats and wines. The list is long and tasty: casonsei and polenta from Bergamo, panissa and wines from Vercelli, luganega from Monza and raspadura from Lodi are only few of the typical products linked to Pianura Padana territory. Together with pasta, cured meats and jams (the ancient mostarda cremonese, a product whose origins date back to the Middle Ages) there are also PDO branded wines. For example, the well-known Parmigiano reggiano produced in Reggio Emilia in a variety called "delle vacche rosse", or the traditional balsamic vinegar from Modena, Franciacorta wine from Brescia, and much, much more.
Racing car lovers will appreciate the Formula 1 circuit in Monza, or a visit of Modena and Museo Enzo Ferrari. Opera lovers can follow in the footsteps of Luciano Pavarotti in his Modena, visit Busseto, Parma and Piacenza, the cities where Giuseppe Verdi lived, or picture Donizetti in his birthplace in Bergamo. And again, talking about music, Cremona has kept alive its tradition of musical instrument making started by Stradivari.
Visit an archaeological site or ancient and contemporary art museums, cycle around the cities or shop in an outlet store: everything is possible with so many opportunities at hand. The cities of the Circuito are close and well connected one to the other. If you conclude your Expo experience with a visit to one or more cities of the Circuito you will surely remember it for the rest of your life as a real and romantic "Journey to Italy".