Day 15 – The Long and Winding Road
Our time in Cinque Terre had come to an end and we certainly didn’t want to leave but we did get to do everything we wanted to and really enjoyed it. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. While waiting at the train station to head to Monterrosso we had one last piece of focaccia with pesto. The train was running late so had a really tight connection to get to Milan. We almost didn’t make it and literally came running out of the ticket office to jump on the train. We arrived in Milan at mid afternoon and checked into our final hotel, Sheraton Diana Majestic.
They upgraded us to a nice big room and were very helpful by giving us a map and layout of the metro and some areas to go check out that we didn’t know about. We set out on foot to hammer out everything we wanted to so that we’d have our last day in Milan free to do whatever.
We made it over to the Duomo and it’s even more amazing in person than in pictures. It’s gothic and looms over the city quite impressively. Milan is an interesting city and far different than Florence. In Florence everything is soaked in tradition and art while in Milan art and tradition go head to head with shopping and modern fashion. All of the old and historic buildings sit right alongside tons of stores and boutiques. The main square in the city, of which the Duomo is the central focus, is surrounded by hundreds of stores from Prada and Coach to Zara and H&M.
Inside the Duomo it is dark and huge; it’s really the outside and top that makes it one of coolest things we’ve seen on our entire trip. Every single one of the seemingly hundreds of little statues and pieces of sculpture on the Duomo are unique. You can walk up to the top of the Duomo in Milan and see the city. The view of Milan is nothing like the view of Florence. Milan is dotted with tall buildings and cranes, a sign of a city coming to terms with it’s modern future. The roof of the Duomo in Milan is much larger, though, and there is so much to see about the building itself. It something you just have to see and can’t be described.
After leaving this area we walked down to an area with canals that is supposed to have good restaurants and nightclubs. Along the way we saw smaller boutiques and areas where the local hipsters and punk rock kids were hanging out. They were all hanging around outside drinking beer and nobody was hassling them. After 17 days, this sight is still hard to get used to. We got to the canal and it was clearly the place to be on a Saturday night. Everyone was down there and it seemed most were locals. We walked down one side of the canal and up the other and were overwhelmed with eating choices so we finally just picked one at random. It turned out to be pretty good as we tried the Milanese version of risotto made with saffron and parmesan. We also had some excellent gnocchi with veal and then some sea bass wrapped in zucchini with a light tomato sauce. It was very good.
This would be the time to make note of an interesting eating option in Italy that we never really noticed until Milan. All of the younger people do happy hour. It’s huge there and it’s not happy hour the way Americans do it. It’s not just drink discounts and chips and queso. Nope. These guys are eating buffets full of good food and it lasts until 10 or 11 pm at night everywhere. Prosciutto and melon, cheeses, pizzas, pastas, etc. From what we could figure out you usually paid full price for your drink then you ate for free. We theorized this is what places do to get people to drink since so many people can just hang out and drink on the street on their own. It was clearly the popular thing to do but we didn’t know how it worked so we stuck to a traditional sit down meal.
We made the long way back and saw people selling beer out of buckets on the street and it seems to be a general free-for-all as far as what people do there.
They upgraded us to a nice big room and were very helpful by giving us a map and layout of the metro and some areas to go check out that we didn’t know about. We set out on foot to hammer out everything we wanted to so that we’d have our last day in Milan free to do whatever.
We made it over to the Duomo and it’s even more amazing in person than in pictures. It’s gothic and looms over the city quite impressively. Milan is an interesting city and far different than Florence. In Florence everything is soaked in tradition and art while in Milan art and tradition go head to head with shopping and modern fashion. All of the old and historic buildings sit right alongside tons of stores and boutiques. The main square in the city, of which the Duomo is the central focus, is surrounded by hundreds of stores from Prada and Coach to Zara and H&M.
Inside the Duomo it is dark and huge; it’s really the outside and top that makes it one of coolest things we’ve seen on our entire trip. Every single one of the seemingly hundreds of little statues and pieces of sculpture on the Duomo are unique. You can walk up to the top of the Duomo in Milan and see the city. The view of Milan is nothing like the view of Florence. Milan is dotted with tall buildings and cranes, a sign of a city coming to terms with it’s modern future. The roof of the Duomo in Milan is much larger, though, and there is so much to see about the building itself. It something you just have to see and can’t be described.
After leaving this area we walked down to an area with canals that is supposed to have good restaurants and nightclubs. Along the way we saw smaller boutiques and areas where the local hipsters and punk rock kids were hanging out. They were all hanging around outside drinking beer and nobody was hassling them. After 17 days, this sight is still hard to get used to. We got to the canal and it was clearly the place to be on a Saturday night. Everyone was down there and it seemed most were locals. We walked down one side of the canal and up the other and were overwhelmed with eating choices so we finally just picked one at random. It turned out to be pretty good as we tried the Milanese version of risotto made with saffron and parmesan. We also had some excellent gnocchi with veal and then some sea bass wrapped in zucchini with a light tomato sauce. It was very good.
This would be the time to make note of an interesting eating option in Italy that we never really noticed until Milan. All of the younger people do happy hour. It’s huge there and it’s not happy hour the way Americans do it. It’s not just drink discounts and chips and queso. Nope. These guys are eating buffets full of good food and it lasts until 10 or 11 pm at night everywhere. Prosciutto and melon, cheeses, pizzas, pastas, etc. From what we could figure out you usually paid full price for your drink then you ate for free. We theorized this is what places do to get people to drink since so many people can just hang out and drink on the street on their own. It was clearly the popular thing to do but we didn’t know how it worked so we stuck to a traditional sit down meal.
We made the long way back and saw people selling beer out of buckets on the street and it seems to be a general free-for-all as far as what people do there.
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