Saturday, March 12, 2011

Milan, day 1

Let me start off with this: I am in my hotel room, with a balcony overlooking the secondary streets if Milan and straight into the windows if the unsuspecting residents across from me :)
I got here after 4 hrs of sleep, a short flight and many, many hours of sightseeing.

Impressions from today? Huge city, confusing bus/tram system, the only understandable way is to travel by the metro. Unfortunately, I had not checked how close our hotel is to a metro station and it turned out that... yes, there are none nearby! So the only way to get to the area, despite being just outside the inner city ring, it by taking  a wooden tram that looks like it had not had any renovations since 1920's.

Honestly, we went to Milan why most tourists go to Milan: to see the Duomo and the Galleria. And you know what, the Duomo exceeded my expectations by a 1000 and it is truly something that you just have to see in person. The extent of it, as you enter inside, will blow you away. Endless stained glass windows, sculptures and amazing marble columns everywhere, not to mention thew fact that it is a functioning church, so when we were there, I got to witness the people lining up to the confessions booth, some as young g as 20, which I've only ever seen in the movies before, like the Boondock saints!

Also, it turns out we got here just in time: Italy is celebrating its 150's birthday and we got to witness a very dysfunctional parade, as well as many fun costumes and hats, and people all in good spirits all around... One little downer? Eating out can get expensive and you really don't know how much everything costs exactly until they tell you and it often it feels like they just make the price in their heads!

And then... I had a chocolateria "incident", but I'll tell you about it later :)



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