Milan, Italy

On Saturday 19th November we flew from Stuttgart to Milan. I had booked a rustic 1-bedroom apartment through Airbnb for our four night stay. I hadn't made it to Milan on my previous visits to Italy so it was exciting having a new city to explore.

The apartment was a couple of minutes walk from the Colonne di San Lorenzo and the Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore.

It was a cool area with cobble-stoned streets and lots of little cafes and bars and boutique shops, plus a very good supermarket only 5 minutes walk away.

They certainly have a unique parking style in Italy!

Our apartment was also easy walking distance to Milan's centre piece, the Duomo di Milano.

The Duomo is a very impressive building, the fifth largest church in the world. The detail up close is quite incredible.

I gave the leg of one of the statues on the intricately carved doors a rub for good luck. You can see where the bronze has been worn right down.

I don't quite know how someone deemed it appropriate to erect a billboard running advertising on the side of the Duomo!

It was all happening in the Plaza in front of the Duomo. There were hundreds of people holding banners, chanting and setting off flares. I didn't know what was going on and was slightly concerned there might be riots... It turns out it was football supporters for AC Milan and Inter Milan who were playing each other that evening in a local derby.

The other very impressive building on the plaza was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II which is essentially a high end shopping mall. 

Unfortunately our luck with the weather well and truly ran out in Milan. It was freezing cold (I lived in my down jacket the whole time), and we got rain most days, some of it torrential! However, the rain did mean that the next time we visited the Duomo Plaza it was quite a bit quieter.

The rain and reduced crowds also meant I was able to get near the 'lucky bull' on the floor of the galleria, as it had been absolutely heaving with people on my previous visit. Legend has it that if you
spin around three times on the bull's testicles with the heel of your foot you receive good luck.

I did feel slightly sorry for the poor bull!

While wandering around Milan we did come across a very cool Bialetti shop. I've been travelling with a Bialetti stovetop espresso maker which I bought in California, once I realised pretty quickly how poor the American coffee actually was. If I didn't already have one I would definitely have bought this super-cute little red single-serve version...

On Tuesday Will was supposed to meet a colleague of his who was on sabbatical in Pavia, about an hour away by train. However, his colleague had the flu so ended up having to cancel. The weather was atrocious, so not having to travel that day was bit of a blessing in disguise. Instead, we went to the Palazzo Reale to check out the Escher exhibition which was visiting.

The exhibition was great. We weren't allowed to take photos of the over 200 woodcuts and lithocuts, but there were several interactive areas where photos were allowed, including Escher's classic 'impossible cube'.

I've always loved his 'Metamorphosis II' so it was very cool seeing it in person.

That night we were taken out for dinner by another of Will's colleagues, Pier Luca. He is a classic Italian charmer and we had a most entertaining evening. The food was excellent, even if Pier Luca insisted on ordering far too much of it!

That was the end of our Italian, and in fact, European adventure. The following day we were on a plane and Asia bound.