Wondering Around Milan April 8, 2010
Posted by tiffany in : Milano , 1 comment so farOur full day in Milan was filled with tram rides and walking aimlessly. It was nice though since there is a lot of old architecture and other interesting (expensive looking too) things to see.
We have learned two things about Milan; it is a business city and you really only need one full day to see the city. This is primarily because everything tourists want to see is clumped in one area basically. There is the Galleria (which has Louise Vutton and many other expensive stores all inside a covered outdoor mall), the Domo (cathedral), the theater, and a couple of squares with sculptures in them.
The cathedral was quite possibly better than the N
otre Dome in Paris. We loved every minute of it and took just a couple of pictures since they don’t like people photographing the cathedral.
We also learned not to be polite to the people with the bracelets walking around the square. One of them threw a bracelet onto Chris’ arm while we were walking by and he tried to give it back and the man said its free; he is trying to raise money to sent to Africa for supplies. So Chris said thank you and the man gave one to me and started to demand ten euros for both bracelets. We told him we don’t have the money and please take them back, but he kept demanding. So we walked away. I feel almost bad for the other hand full of swindlers that approached us afterward, considering the response they got was a firm, almost t
hreatening, NO.
For dinner we had a traditional meal of tortellini stuffed with meat in a creme sauce with ham. It was delicious and for a reasonable price!
First Day in Milan,Italy April 6, 2010
Posted by tiffany in : Milano , add a commentWe were hoping to take a bus from Geneva to Milan (going through the mountain tunnels mess with my ears too much) but we ended up taking a train anyway. The good thing is that it took five hours by train so I can only imagine how long it would take by bus.
We spent most of today on the train eating Nutella and bread, looking out the window (when we weren’t in the middle of a mountain), and taking small cat naps. It was strikingly obvious when the train changed countries. Before we went into a tunnel it was mostly farms and the roof and building styles looked at though they had Flemming influence and on the other side the building were all pressed together with terracotta roofs. A lot of the stops after we crossed into Italy were very nice (we were talking about making a trip to one of these towns, such as Braveno ). There was one stop that was the perfect image of Italy: a lake with many pale buildings with terracotta roofs, Palm Trees, Cypress Trees, Sail boats; all surrounded by snow capped mountains.
So when we finally got to Milan, Italy we went in search of an ATM and wound up asking directions from a Tram ticket kiosk and making the teller very angry. We tried three different languages to see if there was any way he would understand what we were asking and he kept saying, “you’re in Italy, speak Italian!” and the angrier he became, the more he used hand gestures! Eventually we gave up and moved on. We managed just fine by ourselves after that.
So we did the typical thing after we got our hotel room; ate Pizza and later in the evening, Gelato! We’ll be exploring the city more tomorrow
