Blogs from Milan, Lombardy, Italy, Europe

OK - I know. You've been missing the dulcet tones of text from afar. Well instead of going into detail, I'll give you a summary. I heard a sigh of relief - come on, own up! So I think I last blogged from Istanbul. It seems an eon ago. I took a two-day trip to Cappadocia in Central Anatolia (saw a few Anatolian shepherd puppies). Took a couple of day-tours, not usually my bag but I'd dashed off to Cappadocia - Land of beautiful horses - on a whim so I didn't organise any independent travel. Covered a few places of interest incuding the underground city where persecuted Christians used to live; the caves cut into the eroded sandstone under the basalt lava. Escaping Christians used to live here when the Romans came through. Underground churches ... read more

Liviana took me to explore Milano and it is absolutely a spectacle. Ancient buildings are intermixed with the freshest stores offering the newest fashions. I think you could walk around for hours and still not see all there is to buy! We went to a lovely castle called Castello Sforzesco which had cats runnign around it! Lovely place, now it houses a school and library and museum. We looked through the classy department store and judged all of the designer bags from Valentino to Chanel. They only carry up to a size 6 in designer clothes here. If you're bigger, you can shop at the lesser stores I guess :/ Everything in the city center is beautiful, pristine, classy, and expensive. I even ... read more

“So, what did you do last weekend?” “Oh… we were in Milan!” Sounds cool doesn’t it?! Well, it was cool! Literally – it rained every day for the whole time we were there! But it didn’t completely hijack our plans, we still got to do and see heaps of cool stuff in the beautiful buzzing city that is Milan. We arrived on Friday the 13th (ooooo – maybe that’s why it was cursed and rained the whole time??) and checked into our hotel. We went straight out for a special dinner that night in the Navigli district, the canal area in Milan. The canals were constructed around 1177 to 1257 for transporting goods into the city, including the marble that was used to build the Duomo. Lots of them were filled in and became freeways and ... read more

Short entry today. No rain and a bit warmer. We both slept in, ate a leisurely breakfast in our loft on Via Lancetti, and then rode the tram into the center of Milan to see the Duomo and an art museum of 20th century Italian artists. Very leisurely day. I left the memory chip to my camera in my computer in the loft and couldn’t take photos. Sally took a couple for me and I copied a couple from internet sites. I tend not to take photos of stuff that’s readily available on the internet, so it didn’t matter too much that I left the chip. Sally took a couple photos for me, one of a past cardinal of the Duomo, Carlo Borromeo, for whom the church my relatives in Missouri attend was named. The writing ... read more

Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but my computer got overly protective and woiuldn't connect me to the big bad world of the internet until I told it I was using a nice friendly home connection, not a public one. After 24 hours (for me, less for Sally) of sitting on airplanes and schlepping through airports, with airplane traffic backed up on the runway waiting to take off from Newark airport, and lots of switching of trains underground from Milano’s Malpensa Airport, Sally and I arrived at our “cozy loft” on Via Lancetti. We showered ourselves, did laundry, and headed out for food, which we called lunch since it was mid-afternoon here. We ate at what seemed like a quaint neighborhood restaurant and let the waiter/co-owner, an Indian guy born in Australia, named Ash, ... read more

It was a sad day today as we left Massimeno and journeyed to our final stop in Italy, Milano. We were extremely fortunate to have had a beautiful first day in Massimeno, experienced their best snow fall for year on the second day and then have the weather clear up for our drive to Milano. We packed up our stuff, gave the apartment a quick clean and prepared our lunch before saying final goodbyes. The scenery looked amazing as we drove through the valley and we decided to head towards Riva del Garda to view the stunning Lago di Garda. We were not dissapointed. We climbed over one set of mountains and descended into another valley, this one filled with the most enormous alpine lake you could imagine. We ate our panini overlooking Riva and the ... read more