On To Milan

Phil and I took the train from Venice back to Milan on Sunday night. We got to the hotel courtesy of our female cab driver. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it just struck me odd that our driver was a woman. We threw our stuff in the room and headed out to walk around a bit. A few blocks from our hotel was this giant cathedral called Duomo. Apparently it's pretty popular and everyone knows about it, but me, knowing nothing about Milan had no clue it existed. At any rate...here's the entire area, known as Piazza Duomo.

The building just to the left of the church is called the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele...otherwise known as a shopping mall. Definitely fits the bigger name. We headed back to the hotel because Phil had to get up early to head in to the office. Oh yeah...the reason why we were in Italy to begin with.

The next morning after breakfast (and let me just say here that you can always pick out the American businessman at an overseas hotel breakfast buffet by the massive piling of food on his plate compared to the locals) I walked with Phil over to his office so I knew where he was. I headed back to Duomo to take a tour inside. No pictures allowed inside but here's a few from the outside so you can see just how massive this cathedral is.

I walked around for a bit but then went back to the hotel and took the elevator up to the roof to go out to the Garden Terrace. Took some pictures and then settled down to read for a bit. (One book down...four left to read.)

At the top of every hour (yes, I was up there for a few hours) the bells in the basilica tower on the right would start to ring. (And yes, I did picture the wedding scene in The Sound of Music. What is it with Europe that makes me think of that movie?)

I explored the city a little more than stopped at good ol' McDonald's for lunch. For those who've been following our adventures since our time in Australia will remember that I don't like to try new foods and have made it a personal goal to eat at a McDonald's in as many countries that I can. (Not really a social experiment or anything, I just like their cheeseburgers.) The McDonald's was in that fancy building next to Duomo, and if you thought that outside was ornate, take a look at the ceiling.

We had dinner with a work associate of Phil's and his wife at this very nice restaurant. The longer I've stayed in Europe, the more I'm realizing that over here, nobody eats dinner at around 6:00 or so like in the States. They eat later and take much longer than I'm used to. We sat down at 8:30 pm and were finishing up at 11:30 pm. Seriously. And the restaurant was still pretty full. And the lost in translation moment? At the beginning of the meal when the waiter asked us, "Gas or still?" Uh...are you asking if I want gas with my meal, because I can tell you right now that I would prefer not to have any of that, thank you. Turns out he meant sparkling water or still water. Oh...good to know.

The next morning Phil again left for work while I, armed with two street maps, was determined to find the bus stop associated with the big, red Milan sightseeing bus. You know the ones that take you all around the city and you can hop on and hop off at any stop and do the tourist thing to your heart's content? Well...I have truly nailed the lid on the coffin of my dream to compete in The Amazing Race. Even armed with 2 maps, I wandered that city for a good hour trying to find the stupid bus stop. Alas...no tourist bus for me. So I gave up and went shopping instead. Then back to the roof top of the hotel to read some more before Phil came back and we headed to the airport to fly to London. Tomorrow...London.