Milan

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Milan wasn’t the most exciting stop on our trip. I remember hearing that a lot of Europe shuts down in August, but until Milan we didn’t really encounter that. However, in Milan nearly everything but the tourist traps were closed and the first day we were there we had to buy dinner in the supermarket and spent the night relaxing in our hotel room - which was much nicer than I expected it to be! The next day we slept in and headed out to Lake Como for the afternoon. I tried Guiness beer and found it be somewhat disgusting and too bitter for my taste. It was five Euros though, so I drank it anyways. We walked along the waterfront, relaxed in the shade with our books and ate some excellent ice cream and gelato before heading back to Milan.
After visiting Duomo (we didn’t go in) we tried to find something to eat near it to no avail. We finally gave up and sat down small restaurant several blocks from the church and ordered some pasta. We over heard the waiter telling our neighbors that they were ‘out’ of fresh pasta and would be cooking with frozen noodles. Frozen pasta in Italy? What the hell. At this point the waiter had only brought us our waters so we paid for that and left. No matter how hungry we were both of us didn’t want to pay 40 Euros for a frozen dinner in Italy. We fumed about it the entire way back to the metro station. We struck it lucky at a restaurant near the hotel we were staying at. We got twice as much food - which was amazing - for the same price as the frozen pasta restaurant. We had these amazing potatoes - Tim’s were covered in a traditional red sauce and mine with blue cheese. It was excellent!
We decided to go to Bologna the next day since it was the food capital of Italy and our trip is mostly centered on sampling the local fare. The train ride seemed to take a century, but it was only a couple of hours. When we got there we encountered the same problem as Milan, everything was closed except the touristy places. We found some more excellent gelato and were still very, very hungry. After looking around we decided to eat at one of the only open restaurants near the center of town and exploring the shopping center near Duomo. The Bolognese lasagna was excellent and you could tell it was made from scratch as it melted in your mouth. Tim and I shared it, but I wished we had ordered two instead of a plate of French fries. In an attempt to conserve money when we got back to Milan we went back to our hotel room and ate dinner there and watched the Olympics again. I have to say Milan wasn’t so bad, just not amazing in August and not amazing when you’re broke. Tim and I think we’d rather go back another time when we can afford to do it properly.
Yesterday we traveled through Zurich to Munich. Tim and I loved the little bit of Zurich we were able to explore. We wandered around the main shopping area and sampled the food at the shops and found it very much to our liking! If I could actually spell the name of the German sausage thing I had wrapped in a pastry crust I would tell you what it was, but I find German spelling very confusing. We found some chocolate to bring back for family members and then hurried back to the train station to go on to Munich.

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Photos

Milan
Duomo

Milan
There were billions of pigeons outside of Duomo and equally as many peddlers trying to sell you seeds to feed them.

Milan
While we were walking we saw window full of naked manicans with there butts facing out. Being tired from hunger, we found this very very amusing.