Milano

So, we have made our final Italian destination :-(. Tomorrow we head home ... the return flight awaits, hopefully all according to schedule given we are flying Emirates and the local news has been full of suspicious devices being discovered. I like to think it might have somethig to do with certain current elections being held, and remain optimistic.

We managed to drop our trusty Citroen C4 off at Milan Malpensa airport eventually. Hope they never build the second Sydney airport at Badgery's Creek ... this one makes Tullermarine look like it just outside central Melbourne :-). Of course, there are two terminals and we happened to guess that Terminal 1 was where we needed to be - excellent research again (NOT). There were about five rental car gates to choose from and Budget was the least signed of all. We did only need to do one extra ring road circuit though! Best of all, no extra charges, no extra scratches - the latter being the most surprising and most proud moment of this driving adventure :-). We managed a tick under 4,000 kms.

It was a little challenging finding our way to the shuttle service for the Holiday Inn Express, but we made it and after dropping off our bags in the room, decided to get on the shuttle again, back to the airport and on the express train to city centre Milan ... a good choice, because while it was gloomy & cold yesterday, it is very wet and colder today, just as forecast :-(.

We concluded that Saturday must be the afternoon to head into the city and saunter about to be seen & shop. There seemed to be masses of human bodies and you kind of moved along with the flow. Of course, this is not uncommon in many cities and not even as heavy as in Asian cities. It simply seemed so because on this trip it has not been as busy with people as this ... hence my comment on an earlier post that this seemed to be a people version of Roman car and scooter traffic for us (the scooters being bicycles in pedestrian traffic here!). Given our limited time (we did not get sightseeing until after 3.30pm), we really just checked out the main Piazza area and Vias - still very fascinating, especially the Duomo which seemed like a pristine version of Notre Dame for those lucky enough to have seen the latter. Here are some images for you to show the throngs of people and sights.

Deb & the masses on Via Dante

Interior of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Giuseppe Garibaldi & Castello Sforzesco

When we first arrived we were looking for a cafe to get a coffee and found one with a buffet that had lots of fresh veges like baby carrots, cauliflower, broccholi, peas, beans that we had seen very little of. So we enjoyed a feed of them before we set off and so avoided for most of the afternoon/evening any temptation of the get into the pastries ;-).

The highlight was undoubtedly the Duomo. Fortunately we found a side entrance and were able to get in avoiding the hordes at the front; unfortunately it was a very short visit as they began booting the pagans out just after 4.30 so the faithful could say the rosary at 5pm before 5.30 mass ... still wondering how they distinguished the pagans from the faithful, but they had some system in place! Given the construction and cleaning activity and the gloomy day we decided against going up to the roof. Here are some views for you:



Piazza Duomo



Closer view of the side fascade

  

Milan Duomo entrance

The caring person that I am ... while we were wandering around the Galleria shown above, I offered to take a photo of a young couple and their baby. Their mum had been trying to take a photo in the crowds, so I suggested she get in for a more complete family shot :-). Being in the Galleria, and having been taking tourist shots to show the artwork etc., I lined up the shot to get the painting up near the ceiling in as well as them ... of course, when they checked the photo there was no baby in the pram - someone had stolen it ... sorry, very poor sense of humour - because the tourist taking the photo did not even notice the baby in the overall grandeur of the place. Clearly I will make a wonderful "grump pa" ... but I did retake the photo and got them all in :-).

And this final shot is just to show you that we did eventually find a cafe with pastries to try ... well Deb did ... the caption is accurate; an afterthought is better than no thought, and much better for my waistline. My coffee was very nice.

Steve's share of a fruit filled
pastry horn (you know,
the cream horn type)

And so ended a pretty quick tour of Milan. Plenty of shops were visited as well. Very stylish to be sure, but it is VERY expensive, even more so than Florence, but Deb assured me there was nothing she "needed" ... who am I to argue?