Last full day in Milano

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Geo: 45.4637, 9.18813

Well, our last full day here and it was a good one. We're both pretty sore and tired, feet and backs are feeling like we're old people... Don't say it!
Started off rather late as mentioned in the last post and got to the Duomo line for the roof around 12 ish? It was again at the 90-minute wait mark so we went to the Duomo Museum first, rented the audio guide for 6 euros and it was a good museum, pictures to follow. No lines here just walked right in, I guess they're all over in line for the roof top.
The tickets to the Duomo were really worth the money I thought, for 15 euros you get into the Duomo, Archeological site, Museum, another small church, and get to ride the elevator to the rooftop, which really was a highlight. If you come here it's a not to be missed item, in my opinion.

After this, we walked to check the rooftop line and there was no one there! We walked right in, waited for the few people that were already standing in front of the elevator and presto, up we went!! Really cool to be up on top of the roof, getting to see the details that you can't see from the ground was amazing. One of the staff took our photo which was nice of her, we walked around took lots of great photos and decided to sit in the shade and eat our lunch, there were so few people up there it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We also thought it was going to be super hot but actually, there was plenty of shade and it wasn't extremely hot as anticipated. We enjoyed our lunch of rolls with cheese, salami, oil, and vinegar and our water and almonds, Jim added a power bar (isn't this fascinating??) Sorry for the details but this is how I will be able to remember my trip! I thought this area was the entire roof we were able to see but we found a corridor that led to the other and actual top of the Nave part of the Duomo where we could see the city with a 360 view and also the spire with the Madonnina on it. On this side, we saw the one and only sign dealing with food will post it below.

Finished with the Duomo complex, we decided to figure out the metro and ride it to the Monument Cemetary which we were not feeling up to walking to anyway. We also wanted to make sure we knew how to use it and make our way to the Frecciarossa high-speed train we'll be taking to Verona tomorrow. Got some help from the employees who explained the best route to take, and made it just fine. The metro dropped us off right in front of the Cemetary, love metros! This was an amazing place, I have no idea what it must cost to build some of these HUGE mausoleums for their famiglia... Some of them are so detailed, it really was impressive and worth a visit. We went after being tired and at the end of the day, it would be better to go at the beginning of your day and be prepared to walk a lot if you want to really see everything. We probably only saw maybe 10% - 15% of it but that was o.k. At 5:30 a loud kind of siren went off and stayed on, it closes at 6 and you really don't want to hang around and listen to the siren so I think it's pretty effective in getting people out of there ;-). I don't think anyone will be hanging around or sleeping in there...

Got back on the metro and got off at the Centrale station where our train to Verona will be leaving from, really glad we took a little tour of it as it's a very BIG metro combo train station and it was confusing to find where we needed to go, but now we know and it will be easy in the morning. We knew we had 90 minutes to use a ticket so thought we could still use ours continuing on to our neighborhood stop, but since we left the metro area it wouldn't let us use it again, just a heads up for next time.
The closest metro stop for our neighborhood is Missori and it's just a 5-10 minute walk, since we had to use the tickets we had bought for tomorrow, we'll have to buy 2 more in the morning.

Got back to the apartment and fixed some fresh pasta and Amitriciana sauce (FYI, this originated from the town that was just destroyed by the earthquake) from the grocery store along with a salad with greens I've never eaten before, it was good. And it was great to take the shoes off and relax. We had forgotten to stop by the grocery on the way back though to get lunch stuff for tomorrow on the train, it closes at 9 so we hurried out to buy our rolls, cheese, and some frozen gelato for Jim from the freezer section. I passed as I want the real stuff if I'm going to take in that many calories!

Now it's 10:55, Jim's in bed and I'm about to head there, we'll be getting up and at it, leaving the house by 11:00 or so for our 12:30 train since we have to get tickets and walk to the metro...

Will also be calling the school in the morning and see what is going on!
A presto,
Ciao,
Wendy

Steps for today: 15,589, flights of stairs: 18 The whole day was 6.71 miles

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Photos

Street musician
A little girl from the audience was at least half the fun here, she charmed everyone!

Some modern art at the Duomo Museum
In the museum courtyard

Water spouts
Quite a system to keep the water away from the walls of the church, very extensive, lots of drains, etc.. Saw what we thought was probably heating wires to keep the ice off different areas.