Today, we went to Milan which is about and hour and a half away from our Airbnb (which is close to the airport where we will be going tomorrow so stay tuned). (Parent note: Milan's central train station is about a 30 minute ride from the station in Busto Arcizio on an express regional train, or 40 on a regular regional train, or up to an hour of the train decides to stop for a while, which it sometime does.) Our first group (Jen, Gage, and both Nanas) woke up semi early and went on the train to Milan at around 8:30-9:00 AM (Italy time). On the way, their was an outside market where the Nanas, Gage, and Jen met a dog with dread locks (interesting choice but hey you do you puppers). They then headed for Milan Center on the train and then walked about 1.5 miles to the Duomo plaza. Their is not much going on around the central train hub but the building itself is very cool.
Matt, Kayla, Griffin, and Connor decided to go into the city a bit later and catch the 11:22 (Italy Time) train. They then took Metro to Duomo (Milan's Cathedral). Once the second group came up above ground after our Metro stop, they were standing right in front of the Duomo (which is the third largest cathedral in the world).
At the church you could tell they fed the pigeons because there were thousands and they would fly right into you if you were not careful.
The statue in the back center of the piazza at the Duomo is Victor Emanuel. Victor was a military general who took back Milan from foreign control which reunited Italy.
After the piazza, we went through into the galleria of Emmanuel the second. In the galleria this was the first place to have electric light in Italy. However, while they were building this galleria they wanted it to still maintain its old charm with the mosaic floors, designs in the walls, and beautiful glass dome ceiling. Within the galleria their are several expensive shops like Prada (which Matt liked because he was able to send a picture of to his cousin), Ferrari (Connors favorite), and even a designer chocolate store (Kayla's favorite).
(Parent note: one of the mosaics on the floor is a bull, and there is a legend that if you put your heel on the bull's balls and spin around, it will bring you luck. There is a huge divot in the mosaic from all of the tourists doing this. Many of us decided that we are already quite lucky, but Griffin and Kayla decided they needed a little more luck so gave it a go.)
After walking through the galleria we then went to another piazza which had a statue of Leonardo da Vinci. Then our tour ended at the most famous opera house in all of Italy. (Parent note: this is the La Scala opera house. And thanks to the Rick Steves App, the Nanas, Jen and Gage had done the same self-guided tour a bit earlier.)
Once our free online tour was over we the decided to explore the city by walking around. Our first stop allowed all of Connors dreams to come true (except for his dream to Marry Kayla which had already come true earlier this trip) (parent note: they are just engaged - there was NOT a secret wedding!) when he found the Ferrari store. In the three level store their was an actual F1 car hanging from the ceiling (which had Connor bouncing off the walls because its HIS FIRST EVER F1 CAR HE HAS SEEN IN PERSON). So, after a thorough looking through (the mostly empty store which Kayla thought was a bit interesting because aren't they trying to be selling actual things but who knows).
Once Connor had his fun looking around (while the rest of us following him) we then decided it was time for lunch at a local pizza store. THIS WAS THE BEST DECISION OF THE SECOND GROUPS LIFE BECAUSE THE FOOD WAS SOO GOOD.
HOWEVER, THE BEST PART OF THE DAY WAS THE AMAZING GELATO STORE. The Gelato was so good and they had different types of chocolate running constantly for them to dip either the cone in or the tiny wafer in depending on if you get a cone or a cup. This stop was amazing and Kayla will probably never ever find this good of gelato ever again. (Parent note: the earlier group enjoyed gelato, but theirs was not quite this good or fancy. And Gage picked a burger place for lunch, along with some delicious fried artichokes.)
As we left the Gelato store, we walked past someone singing in plain English a song from the “Greatest Show” movie. Kayla then proceeded to ask Connor if the person singing it was singing in French (In Kayla's defense the person was singing super long notes and it did not sound like English at first). To which the answer was no, but also could be plainly heard in English (after we got closer and she moved into actual lyrics).
After some gelato we walked to the nearest Castle. (Parent note: the castle Sforzesco, which is just a short walk from La Scala.). On the way we saw a street artists who was creating a beautiful picture and was using spray paint and fire. Once he has finished his design and sold it in a matter of seconds we decided to walk a little further to the entrance of the castle and then through the castle walls.
It was the largest Castle we had ever seen and once you walked through the several walls you were brought right out to a park with a fabulous arch!
We then walked through the super nice and peaceful park for a bit until Griffin found a bench (He wanted to sit down just to know what it felt like) so we sat down for a bit. Once we quickly decided we were done with that, we finished our walk through the park where we saw several ducks, turtles, fish, and our first squirrel of the trip. Finally, we finished our trip through the park at the arch of peace (kind of funny if you know anything about Italy's history). Sadly, at the arch of peace we then were caught in some rain showers and a bit of small hail.
Luckily, Kayla had brought some cards so we were able to pass the time with a nice game of hearts (even though she lost). Then once it’s stopped down pouring and hailing we were able to walk back and hop on a train to go home at around 6:00 PM (Italy Time). (Parent note: the earlier crew thankfully missed the rain. After walking through the park we had ur lunch, then walked back to the train station and got home around 4:30 - just in time for a rest, happy hour and a quick Aldi run!)
Then we settled on for some dinner (which was either pizza from the same take out place as last night, pasta, or lasagna(which Kayla managed to drop and spill boiling hot sauce all up her leg which was a bit unfortunate)). Then everyone began packing for tomorrow because we fly out to Greece tomorrow morning around 6:00 AM (Italy Time). Wish us luck and join us back tomorrow to hear how that goes.
Signing off,
Kayla Daniel
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