DAY 1 - 3/27/17 - Monday
Off To A Great Start
As I said before, it was daylight savings time the night before my flight to Milan. I'll save the drama and tell you right off that I made my flight. But not before I was awoken at 5:45am to the woman who owned the house knocking vehemently on the door and shouting in French that it wasn't 6am, but 7am. Disoriented and with all of my packing and getting ready to do, I checked and re-checked the time and came to the conclusion that either she was off on the time, or the international time standard online was wrong. I chose to believe the first, but still packed and left hurriedly, adding my shampoo and conditioner to the long list of things I have left behind so far.
Racing to the airport with my heavy bag on my back, I stopped to snap this photo of the gorgeous sunrise.
One thing going right so far.
I was flying with Ryanair, and the absolute scumbags people just trying to do their jobs don't allow you to print off a boarding pass if you don't check in online within a two hour window of your flight. In my haste I had forgotten to do this - NEVER AGAIN. It cost me more than I had paid for the flight to get a ticket printed off at the counter. At least I know now.
After getting through security with my "carry-on" bag that is definitely too large for a carry on, but which I've managed to get through every time as it doesn't seem to be anyone's job to monitor this (pro-tip), my flight took off and landed without a hitch in Milan.
View from the air - either France or Italy.
Once at the Milan airport I bought an Italian SIM card for my phone from a money changing kiosk. This turned out to be one of the smartest traveling purchases I've made, as it was only €25 and allowed me to have internet anywhere for about three weeks.
Highly recommended.
I took the metro to my hostel, which was located to the north-east of the city. It was called Hostel Colours and was a nice place with clean comfy beds and a large common area with huge shared industrial kitchen. I ended up meeting some great people there, the first of which were two awesome girls from Hong Kong who let me tag along and explore the city with them for two days. They were not only great friends but also had done a considerable amount of research on the best places to eat in Milan, which made my life cake as I simply followed along.
The three of us checked into our dorm room at the same time, and almost immediately set out together to check out the main part of town and more importantly to get a delicious calzone.
Cool Duomo. But where are the calzones?!
Ahh, finally.
This calzone was seriously one of the best things I have ever eaten. It is amazing in Italy how a lot of the food is so simple - in this case just dough, tomato sauce and mozzarella - but tastes heavenly. I bit into this calzone and all I could think of was how unfair it was that Italians get to eat like this every single day.
I felt like Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec with his calzone obsession. Like, I get it now. And you will too if you ever get to go to Luini.
They closed about 15 minutes after we got there, at 3pm, after running out of calzones.
Afterwards, because we hadn't been spoiled enough, we went around the corner and treated ourselves to gelato.
Because we deserve it.
We then went to explore some actual monuments, mostly to save ourselves from binge eating more calzones and gelato.
The first stop was the famous Duomo of Milan. Pictures cannot accurately represent just how enormous it is. Even vertical panoramas. It was built over a span of 600 hundred years, starting in the 14th century, and is the largest cathedral in Italy.
Tiny people for scale.
View of the square from the front of the Duomo. Panoramas don't work too well when people walk right through them.
Inside the Duomo.
Even the floor is a work of art!
Statue inside the Duomo.
Golden statue and stained glass.
After wandering around the cool, dark interior of the Duomo in awe for awhile, we went to explore the "archaeological exhibit" in the basement. It was essentially the oldest parts of the cathedral, some from the first century AD, which had been unearthed beneath the surface of the "new" cathedral. Pretty amazing and mind blowing to see architecture from so long ago.
You can see bits of the old stone floor pattern on the left.
Ancient stone.
After being mesmerized by history for awhile, we switched gears and headed outside to the famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, right next door to the Duomo. This is an indoor shopping street that includes storefronts for Prada, Lous Vuitton, Gucci, Armani, and more. Basically the kind of place it would be fun to spend several hours in if you are a Kardashian, or a few minutes in if you are us.
It was nice to look at though!
For the fancy people.
Now this is my kind of store.
After taking plenty of pictures and snapchat stories, we headed on and walked to the Castello Sforzesco, near the Parco Sempione in the north-west of the city.
Inside the castle courtyard. I could live here.
More of the castle.
Standing in front of probably a famous archway that I can't find any information on right now.
There's that sunset lighting!
We ended the night with some truly incredible pizza (almost calzone status) at a restaurant that my two friends had gotten a recommendation for, and then a view of the Duomo at night - even more grand and daunting than during the day.
I can't even look at this I want it so bad right now.
Look at that beauty.
DAY 2 - 3/28/17 - Tuesday
Statues & Sweets
Tuesday was spent mostly eating and walking around, aka the perfect day. We decided to walk into town from the hostel, which took about 40 minutes, but the path went along the Corso Buenos Aires and contained almost every store you could ever want to visit. The best one by far was the Lindt store. It had not only every kind of Lindt truffle you could imagine, but a larger-than-life size poster of The Chocolate Man - the man pictured on the back of Lindt chocolate bars who takes chocolate making VERY SERIOUSLY.
Look at that concentration. Don't overfill that truffle, buddy.
Heaven.
During our walk we passed by the Planetarium of Milan, and went in for a look. Unfortunately all of their shows for the month contained too much Italian to be enjoyed by people who don't understand it. However, we did get to marvel at a periodic table which was entirely in Italian and showcased actual samples of many of the elements. Did you know that "lead" in Italian is "piombo"? Makes much more sense than our stupid language, huh?
They did not have a sample of Uuo. So I give it an A-.
Our journey led us past lots of cool shops and interesting fashions. People-watching in Milan is fantastic but also has a way of making you feel like a big slob. Everyone is dressed impeccably, even the children. It was fun looking at all of the creative storefronts though, even if we didn't want to tempt ourselves by going inside.
Nothing is more fashionable than cat shoes.
"Make love not walls" - a Diesel campaign projected around the city. Hell yes.
Surprisingly Tupac knee socks haven't become a big fashion trend (yet).
We had originally planned to go to the Duomo museum the day before when we went to the actual Duomo, but like many things in Italy it was closed on Mondays. So we went on Tuesday. The museum showcases lots of out of commission statues and old objects from the Duomo over the centuries, as well as an amazing scale model of the building and examples of the stained glass inside.
The most entertaining part of this experience was that the Duomo scale model had a ridiculously sensitive security feature, so anytime anyone so much as breathed too close to it the alarms went off. This happened about once every 15 minutes.
Trying to blend in.
Statues everywhere. Always watching.
Watching, and waiting.
After leaving the Duomo museum and being almost blinded by the bright sunlight outside, we decided to get some drinks and sit in the park for awhile. As I said, its a rough life over here.
It's not a vertical panorama but it's still pretty.
We went to a bar and discovered that you can get take-away drinks - a novel concept for someone from Oregon, the land of OLCC. I ordered a spritz, which is a common Italian cocktail made with Aperol and prosecco. It was refreshing and delicious.
Not quite gelato but a close second.
Italians know how to do it right.
Beers & friends & the park!
At this point there is not much more to report; we spent a few hours intermittently talking and sleeping in the park. It was great. Afterwards we walked to another delicious restaurant and had dinner.
Sunset in Milan.
Can't go wrong with pasta!
THank you wandering daughter for another fun post. I love looking at the food!
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