Frankfurt to Milano, Italy

Woke up this morning in Frankfurt to clouds, drizzle and chilly weather. Had no problem getting on the train, to Basel, changed trains, went to Olten, changed trains and got on the train to Milano. Well here we go with our daily adventure. We had assigned seats but someone was sitting in them so we just sat in 2 other seats! Wrong thing to do, after 1 stop, we were told we’d better go claim our seats because the train gets really crowded and we’d have a rough time getting the seats we were assigned. The train was already crowded and most of the folks had suitcases that were immensely huge and had to sit behind a seat or in the aisle, so here we were trying to get to our seats and other people were trying to find a seat. I landed in some guys lap about 3 times until finally he was laughing about it! One woman was trying to get her giant suitcase and her smaller one past me, no easy task. I grabbed her smaller suitcase and pulled it forward and when I put it on the floor I went along with it! This was probably the craziest thing I’ve have ever seen or done! Jim was stuck about 2 people behind me and I knew he was worried but I gave him the look that said no worries – I’m going to master this challenge.

I got to our seats and there were 2 young guys sitting in them so I very nicely showed them my ticket and told them they were in our seats and they just looked at me like oh crap, we are busted but they smiled, got up and asked me how long it took to get to Milano in that very cute Italian accent, so I said 3 hours good luck finding a seat and they laughed! With all the craziness that went on, there was not one cranky , crabby or nasty person! I couldn’t believe it!

So how about a train shot?

Here are some photos we took from the train while going through the Swiss Alps. It really was a beautiful train ride but the train was going so fast it was hard to get good shots.

 

After we arrived in Milan, we took the metro to The Duomo, which is near the street that our apartment is on, then walked to the apartment. Here is the view from our apartment.

 

After checking into our apartment and putting our stuff away, it was time to check out the area and eat! Instead of going to the more touristi restaurants, the owners of our apartment pointed us in the direction of restaurants the locals eat at! We were the only Americans in there and we had the experience of a lifetime! We had a fabulous meal and sat there for a couple of hours. Please enjoy the photos of tonight dinner! It was absolutely delicious!

They put bread on the table and two little bowls, one containing a tomato type spread and the other was parma crema which we absolutely loved! It was unbelievable.

Then we order Prosciutto, that literally melted in your mouth.

After that we ordered our dinner and Jim ordered wine – yup I had some of it but not too much. It was a Sangiovese and very good.

Jim’s dinner – Ravioli with Pesto

Fran’s dinner – Gnocchi with Pomodoro

After dinner we had an excellent espresso – oh dear maybe that’s why I’m not tired and it’s already 11pm!  More from us tomorrow – Sunday and Jim’s birthday! We’ll have to go someplace yummy for dinner again!!!

Ciao!

August 24th and Jim’s birthday!

Here’s the birthday boy with a bottle of Champagne, compliments of the apartment owner and a card from me that I purchased months ago and actually remembered to bring – it play *Celebration.* Now what better place to celebrate your birthday than in Milan?  I’ll give you the answer to that question when my birthday rolls around.

A few shots from and of our apartment here in Milan. It’s really pretty awesome!

 

 

 

 

We went to the top of the Duomo this afternoon – after having attended Mass this morning. Mass in Italian, wow, how beautiful. We took the lift to the top, stair don’t excite us much anymore especially after all the stairs we climbed at the church in Germany. The view was beautiful but what was totally impressive was the close up of the Duomo and how beautiful the architecture was. It was amazing. Here are just a few shots because truthfully, you really had to be there to appreciate it.

 

The construction around the Duomo is because they are cleaning it and the locals say the Duomo always has scaffolding around it because they are always cleaning it and it makes sense when you see they whole Cathedral – it’s unbelievably large and very intricate.

Ate lunch at the apartment, went for a little walk and decided that was enough for today. Time for some relaxation and possibly a nap! Going to dinner for Jim’s birthday and he has not decided where or what he wants yet so guess that’s it on the blog for this afternoon.

Quite the Find!

Jim and I went to dinner Sunday but it wasn’t all that great except for the Limoncello. Now that was absolutely the best. I even drank the whole thing. I have a feeling the alcohol content wasn’t very high because it didn’t bother me at all and it was just delish!

Monday was a slow day, cloudy, relaxed a little then Jim took a walk by himself and came back to get me. He found a purse store – yes Chad, he did it again but he only had to buy for me this time — and it was on sale! No, he wasn’t drinking! He saw one that he knew I’d love so we went there and it turned out to be a great shopping area that we had not seen yet – boy am I slow! So I bought the purse as you can see.

 

Had pizza for dinner – no pictures; you all know what that looks like.

Tuesday was our 3 hour bus tour which turned out to be fantastic. Our tour guide was awesome and gave us some great history of every place we went, and she was a music aficionado who hummed most all famous opera songs ever sung in the Opera House.  We started at the Duomo, and then walked to the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, where many of the high end stores are located. She gave us the history of the building and why Prada is so prominent in the center of the galleria (they pay 1 million euros per year for that privilege.)

Next stop was La Scala Opera House and museum. This was so amazing but unfortunately, the first opera performance is 7 December and opera performances run through July, so we missed it. No photos for this, our apologies. Had a bus tour around Milan, past the Pirelli skyscraper, the Giardini Pubblici (a giant municipal garden), past the canal district, through the garment district which is now predominantly Chinese, and finally past the Monumental Cemetery. We then stopped at Castel Sforze where our guide gave us a great history lesson on Milan and the political and family powers that ran it.

We then jumped on the bus and drove to The Church of Santa Maria della Grazie where we saw Leonardo da Vinci’s, The Last Supper. No photos allowed and a sight to see, so amazing.  Back on the bus and through the financial district ending back at the Duomo and completing the tour.

 

By now we were pretty hungry so Jim and I stopped at San Tomaso Cafe for a great lunch; no photos allowed because we ate so quickly! Trust me when I say it was delicious and it was a Chad recommendation. We expect to go back for another meal and I promise photos at that time.  Then we were looking for bread to go with our cheese and wine tonight when we happened upon a gelateria and decided it was as good a time as any for our first cup of gelato this trip!

We finally made it to the bread store and on the way back to the apartment, we noticed the hair salon right next door and it was open so we popped in to see if they could do something with my hair! They took pity on me and took me right away – so no more blond, all gone. Now I sport the shorter, darker hair and I spent Jim’s wine allowance doing it!

That’s it for tonight folks. We are in for the night, having some prosciutto, cheese and bread with a little wine and Italian TV! It’s drizzling and we are still full from lunch.  We found out from our guide today that Italy, like everywhere else, has had chillier than normal weather this summer! Oh just what I wanted to hear, guess I’ll have to go shopping for something a little warmer.

A Museum Adventure

What would it be like if there were no adventures in our lives? Probably boring! Normally one would think going to a museum would be a lot of walking around, looking at art, trying to figure out what some of the abstracts mean, basically enjoying all the beautiful pieces of art that were in the museum. That would be your normal museum tour. Jim and I went to the Galleria di Piazza Scala in the  Banca Commerciale Italiana building, which is absolutely huge. We went from room to room really enjoying ourselves and amazed at how many rooms there were and how much art was housed in this museum. It truly was beautiful. We were there for quite a while and finally thought we were finished only to find out, we couldn’t figure out how to get out of the building. It just went on and on until I finally said to Jim – do you think it’s possible for us not to find our way out of here? He hoped that was not possible.  We finally did figure out how to get out of the building but it was not easy!

Statue of Leonardo da Vinci

We then strolled down another shopping mall, Via Montenapoleone where there are many great stores. We then switched to Via della Spiga which is also famous for the high end stores. The top end stores, in the top end city and we left them none of our euros!

 

After this it was time for lunch, ah our favorite time of day – eating has turned into our favorite pastime!

Time for a little more walking so off to the Italian Stock Exchange where we found our photo of the day.  There is a popular and famous work of art in front of the Stock Exchange building. First, can you see it? If you do, you will understand that it is interpreted to mean that the rich are blowing off the have-nots.

Next stop another Gelateria, Jim had vanilla and Fran had strawberry, both were outstanding! Keep this up and we will be rolling back to AZ!

Trolley and Subway Excursions

After morning caffe (espresso) and capuccino, we jumped on the trolley, our first attempt here and we pulled it off with no difficulty (or trepidation) and headed out to the Cimitero Monumentale – Milan’s famous cemetery. Massive – many, many graves and mausoleums. Awesome artworks decorated the grave stones and mausoleums. That “expert” on travel, Rick Steves, had noted that there were also some rather unusual statues/statuettes including many that depicted great agony, pain and loss. We saw a few, such as the one below.

On the opposite end of the spectrum were the two that follow. Although tragedies, these young people have been respectfully remembered at their graves. The first recognizes the olympic Italian butterfly swimmer Daniela Samuele who at 17 years old, died with seven other members of the Italian olympic swimming team in a plane crash at Bremen, Germany, in 1966. The second is the memorial to two Italian pilots, tenanti or lieutenants, who died in WW I.

 

And then there were a myriad of other wonderful tributes:

 

We’ll add just one of the mausoleum memorials to show the effort, expense and grandeur devoted to memorializing families here. This was perhaps our personal favorite as it depicts Jesus being placed in the tomb after his crucifixion and from where he rises. There were many, many more such marvelous mausoleums and grave stone markers — in the thousands we’d say.

From the cemetery, we walked over to the subway station and jumped the subway to the Stazione Centrale — central train station — where we purchased without difficulty our tickets for the train ride to Genova on Saturday. Then off again on the Metro to a station near the Basilica of San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is the oldest church in Milan dating back to the 4th Century — that’s the 300’s folk! Just outside the front of the basilica are the Roman Colonne di San Lorenzo. Church and columns were beautiful.

 

Next we began looking for a lunch spot but on the way, stopped at San Eugostorgio, the gate at Port Ticinese and Porta Genova — all within 50 meters of each other. So was the restaurant we chose!

Chow time and more pasta. The white wine was good as well.

To walk off the pasta, we headed back towards the Centro en route to the church of San Ambrogio and the Catholic University. As all can imagine, all these churches are beautiful.  Along the way though, we passed along the canals. Longer story about canals some time but Milan was a major port years ago connected to several rivers and the Mediterranean by canals.

 

 

Finally we were dying — couldn’t walk very much longer and in fact, began looking for trolley stations. However, our last objective of the day was within blocks so we hoofed it anyway. At the recommendation of Chad and Juli and at 3:00 PM in dire need of our daily gelato fix, we headed off to Shokolat which is truly, after a significant taste test, the best gelateria in this town. Coffee and ricotta with honey and walnuts were the two flavors this day!

Friday promises to be a little less hectic. I’m getting my nails done and we are planning 1 museum and that’s all folks. Thank you Jim for today’s blog – job well done.

Milan at an end!

We went for coffee this morning and met a woman who asked us what we were doing today. So we told her we were shopping and she gave us some ideas as to where to shop that were not as expensive as the tourist areas, so after chatting for a bit, she ended up buying us coffee! Only in Italy! Boy was that ever nice.

I went to get a manicure then we ate lunch and went to the Duomo Museum. It was fantastic and we wondered if folks today could still do some of that fantastic sculpting that was done all those years ago. Totally amazing.

No other touring today and no photos. We relaxed this afternoon, then went to dinner where we met a young Italian couple and had the best time getting to know them and see Italy through their eyes. We are meeting them again in October when we return to Milan for another week.  Off to Genoa tomorrow where we will begin the Genoa Blog!

Ciao Milano!