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Published: April 8th 2012
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Umbrella
Only 175 Euro! Happy Resurrection Sunday! I want to focus this blog post on my day trip to Milan with Florence For Fun; I’ll make a second post either tonight or tomorrow on Scoppio Del Carro (explosion of the cart). My day began early since it is just over a three hour bus ride to Milan from Florence. On the way up the group watched The Devil Wears Prada and the beginning of The Holiday to pass the time, although some people did sleep. Upon arrival we went to the historic district and walked around, we visited the cathedral and the gallery. The church was massive and had glass windows and artwork everywhere. This church is said to be the house of one of the nails that was used to hang Jesus on the cross; but this is only put on display three days a year in September.
The gallery is also a beautiful sight with a glass ceiling and mosaics on the floor. One is of a bull which is said to bestow good luck if you twist your foot on the… um… male parts. Our tour guide informed us that tourists tend to use their heels but locals use their toes.
There were also stores here, like Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. There was a skirt I loved in the Prada window, only 700 euro, and I also found a beautiful umbrella, for 175 euro. Why can’t I fall for inexpensive things?! We also were shown the opera house, but just the outside. It was smaller than I thought it would be. An interesting fact, La Scala was bombed during the second world war and the one that is there now is a replica of how it was before it was designed. So although it looks the same it is a modern building. We did have some free hour to browse around and that is how I found out the prices of the pieces mentioned above.
Our next stop was the fashion area of town, where the Beckhams and Robert Redford have apartments, both of which were pointed out. The window displays were interesting to look at and there were very few items I would actually wear. One thing I did notice in this area was that there were small artful designs on the sidewalk. Don’t worry there are pictures. I was the person taking picture of the ground while
everyone else was getting pictures of the things in the windows!
After the fashion district we walked through the design district which was a more residential area, which was charming. Then we went to the castle, it was what you would expect. There used to be a drawbridge but it has since been replaced with a stone bridge, and a beautiful fountain in the front. Inside is a wide open area and we were told it hosts a museum, but we didn’t have enough time to go in. On the other side of the castle is a large park with an arch that was put up by Napoleon when he concord Milan and made it the capital of his Italy.
Our final stop was the canals which were designed by Leonardo di Vinci to help bring in the marble for their grand gothic basilica. This area was also very cute, it is now home to artists and in the evening the disco-techs. Off to one side of the canal Leonardo added a small section where the women of this poor section of town would wash their clothes. We also stopped at a gelataria which had a great caramel
ice cream. Another thing that this particular gelataria had was the flavor Aztec, the reason this caught my eye was because for Jen’s, Nathan’s girlfriend, asked for Aztec ice cream if we could find it; I guess it is a type of chocolate with some cinnamon in it. So we couldn’t find it in Washington but I found some in Milan Italy!
This wrapped up our whirlwind day tour of Milan; on the bus ride back we grabbed dinner at a rest stop, finished up The Holiday and watched most of Love Actually. While I slept instead of watching Love Actually, but it was on in the background.
Upon my return from the train station I came across a crowd at the Duomo where, I discovered, there is a tradition of lighting a small fire in front of the church. Since I don’t speak Italian I don’t understand why this is done or what was said, sorry, I’ll try to remember to ask at my next Italian culture class. After watching the fire for a few minutes I continued home and strait to bed.
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Grandma Jo
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Easter
Sounds like good sightseeing!