A new adventure is upon us! Our niece Alissa, is spending her Junior year of high school in Sicily as a foreign exchange student, and we told her that we would come and have dinner with her. Of course for us, dinner means a 10 day vacation to explore and visit. February is not peak tourism season in Sicily, but is still a good time for us to go. It will not be a tropical warm vacation as highs will be in the 50’s, but it is still certainly better then the polar vortex and 8 inches of snow that we just went through. The other plus side is that because it is not peak season it will be cheaper!
In doing research in planning for this trip I found that it was cheaper to fly into Milan and then take a Ryan Air flight into Palermo, Sicily. I purposely planned the flights so that we would have some time to see Milan before going to Sicily.
Our travel from home to Milan was extremely smooth with no hiccups with traffic or flights. The only disappointment was that the American Airlines plane that we were on from JFK to Milan, was no where near as nice as the Iceland Air or Air Canada flights that we took in the past couple of years. Seats were small and had no in-seat entertainment (no screen on the back of the seat). It’s not a huge deal, but I do give props to the other two airlines for doing it right.
We took a shuttle bus from the airport to Milan Central station. I had purposely booked a hotel right here because I knew we would have to be up extremely early to catch the bus back to the airport the next morning. It worked out great! We walked the short distance to the hotel and even though it was only around 10:00a.m., they had a room ready for us. This was music to my ears because we were both exhausted and wanted to sleep for a couple of hours before we set out to see Milan.
After catching some Zzz’s we asked the front desk what the best way was to get to the Duomo (the large cathedral that Milan is known for). He said it was an easy subway ride away or about a 40 minute walk. It was sunny and about 58 degrees, so we opted for the walk. It was great to stretch out our legs after the long flight too. It really felt like spring and it was great to have the sun shine warmly on our face. We hope that spring will be waiting for us when we get back to Wisconsin!
We enjoyed the walk and found a cute side street that was decorated with hearts for Valentine’s Day. Perfect photo opportunity. I brought up my geocaching app and found one to walk towards that was on the way to the Duomo. We tried finding it but the GPS was really bouncing and we couldn’t zero in on a spot. I didn’t want to waste too much time looking either as we had just a couple of hours before our scheduled tour of “The Last Supper”.
We finally came upon the Duomo. It was quite packed with people but an impressive sight. I had read that we should pay the money and take the time to go the top. We found where to buy tickets and opted for the ticket to climb the stairs versus taking the elevator. There looked to be line for the elevator, but when we rounded the corner to find the stair entrance we found only a few people in front of us. It didn’t bother us to take the stairs. The top was an impressive sight of all the spires and statues. Thankful to have a sunny clear day to see the view of the city. When we came back down we attempted another geocache. This one was much easier to find and I made the grab to sign the log. I was surprised to find I was the first one to sign a log that looked like it had just been placed.
We’re happy that Tom had signed up for the international plan with Verizon for this trip. It’s great to have access to the internet and the GPS is super helpful. Our next destination, which was the church where the Last Supper was painted on the wall by Leonardo DaVicini, was a 20 minute walk according to Google. They only let groups of 30 people in at a time and tickets sell out very fast. Thankfully I had done some research ahead of time and had bought the tour tickets several weeks ago. We got to the meeting spot early and enjoy watching some kids kicking around a soccer ball.
The tour I paid for included an English speaking guide. They used little radios with an earpiece so that we could hear the guide. I thought this was great. I wish every tour I went on used those. It’s so much easier to hear the tour guide. They only let the groups of 30 in for 15 minutes to view the Last Supper. The guide explained all the intricacies of the painting, although Tom said he already knew what it was about. He says it obvious that Jesus was coordinating with the disciples on who was picking up the tab. LoL What I found most surprising was how big it was. I guess I had always thought it was a painting on canvas and hadn’t realized that it was a fresco painted on a wall. Before the guide got through everything she wanted to tell us about the painting, the museum worker was ushering us out the door as our 15 minutes was up.
After the tour we asked the guide if she had any recommendations of restaurants for dinner and she suggested an area by a canal. She provided us directions on how to get to the Metro station and off we went. We almost found the Metro station based on her directions, but missed one turn. We only walked a block or so extra but glad we stopped to ask somebody before we wandered any further. Once at the metro station we attempted to figure out what ticket we should buy and how to buy it. We asked somebody who got us going in the right direction (but they didn’t speak a lot of English) and then another English speaking person passing by said we could just use our credit card at the turnstyle and it would automatically figure out the fare. This sounded too easy and the way to go . . . except we found that when we tried it we didn’t have the technology on our credit card that would work for it. I’m sure America will get these cards in a few years. I feel like America is always behind Europe when it comes to credit card technology. Back to the ticket machine we went. After watching somebody else use the machine we felt we had enough knowledge to work it. We got it figured out and we were on our way.
It was a quaint area by the canal with a ton of restaurants. We couldn’t remember the name of the specific restaurant the guide had recommended, but we found one with the menu posted outside that had risotto and this is the one dish that I wanted to eat in Milan. I had read in a book that Milan was known for their risotto. It was a very artsy place and just right up our alley. I had the mushroom risotto and Tom had the gnocchi. We both enjoyed our meal (although Tom said the gnocchi was good, he wished he had gotten the risotto). We were feeling exhausted and knowing that we had to be up very early we were ready to call it a night. Unfortunately in the very European way, it took 45 minutes after we were done eating for our waiter to bring us our bill. We made it back to the hotel by 9:30 and after some quick double checks on what time we needed to be up and reading messages received throughout the day, I was in bed by 10:00 with the alarm set for 3:30a.m. It was a good day and thankful for the nice weather.
Stats of the Day
Geocaches Found: 1
Steps Walked: 19,027
High Temperature: 59 degrees
