Milano

I realise I haven't posted anything for a while.. literally not since Matt left and I probably should write at least a little something about when he was here! Hehe.

So yeah, well we went to Milan a couple of times, and somehow the jammy dodger brought a whole week of sunshine with him when he came. Literally, we had rain the week before he came and then the sun disappeared as soon as he left, but it was between 20 and 25 degrees whilst he was here. Not too shabby I guess!

In a way it was perfect, the weather was good and hot and even though Dominga had to got to Rome and then Milan to work for most of the week, Giorgio was pretty decent about how much I had to work.

The first time we went to Milan was the Sunday - it was a whole free day for me and the weather was boiling. We caught the train from Stradella to Voghera, then Voghera up to Milano Centrale (which was a nightmare, but no one came to check our tickets and we were joined by an Italian-speaking woman from Moldova who was going the same way as us and insisting on making conversation with me, in Italian, nearly the whole way).

We caught the metro to the Duomo.

Pretty big..

Being a Sunday, Milan was packed. There were so many people; tourists, businessmen, bloody persistant street sellers. We milled around, with a basic plan of finding some lunch (pizzeria, of course, getting a gelato and seeing a few sights. The general concensus was, if in doubt, we can just chill and eat. Eating is a wonderful way of passing the time, especially when you're in Italy and they sell sweets, massive pizzas and massive gelati....

We went into the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which is possibly the most expensive collection of shops I've ever seen, bar the Tretyakov Drive in Moscow (I mean, they had red carpets laid over the snow from the carpark to the shop entrances so the customers didn't get their feet wet. Come on now).



(For some reason there were some tourists jumping on the floor where that woman is taking a picture so conveniently in the photo)


We wandered the streets, scouting out the prices of the pizzas on the street-side restaurant cafes. It's crazy how much more you'll pay for a pizza if you want to buy one in Milan compared to in Stradella. I mean, in Stradella the pizzeria charges something like €4-6 for a margherita, whilst in Milan they were pushing on the €8-10 mark. But you know, when in Rome and all that...



Falling victim to an awkward eating photo..


The Castello Sforzesco was at the end of a long flag-lined street, with a huge fountain in front of the entrance. It was full of marching bands who played throughout the day, marching up and down in different coloured uniforms.



Behind the castle was a ginormous grassy park; Parco Sempione, which was filled with people. We managed to find an empty patch of grass and chilled in the sun.

Cheeky selfie (on Mumma Way's request)

San Siro stadium was too far out for us to visit in the time we had, as it required a fair few metro stops and then a bit of a walk. (Bearing in mind we had no map until a few hours in when I found a tourist information centre and asked - in rather poor Italian I have to admit - where I could find one).

We caught the trains back at the end of the day, to be greeted with a severeal course meal when we got home as the Casanova's had friends round for dinner.