On Thursday, Katie and I took the train to Bordeaux to stay with Hanting, a girl I know from UVA. (Lucky Hanting requested the Bordeaux area as well - except she actually ended up living in the city!) Friday morning we headed out to the airport to head to Milan. The flight was pretty quick (just over an hour) and, despite the fact that I don't like flying, was cool because we flew right over the Alps, which were pretty amazing to see from above, particularly since they were covered in snow.
Here's a photo I got with my phone.
Milan is actually very close the the Alps. I didn't realize how close until we'd landed and the Alps were still right next to us. We pretty much flew over them and then landed immediately afterward. You can see them from high points in the city, though they're probably an almost two-hour drive away.
The best thing about Milan was the sunshine. It was colder in Milan than it is in Perigueux (Milan is actually a bit farther north) but there was nothing but sunshine while we were there, which was such a relief after endless rain and clouds in Perigueux. It also made for great pictures.
Look at that blue sky! I haven't seen that much blue sky in at least a month! Probably six weeks!
We went out to explore the city a bit on Friday afternoon/evening. I think I'll just post a bunch of pictures to show you what we saw and explain a bit in the captions. We mostly just wandered around and then ate some pizza. It was sooo nice not to eat French food. I know some people think I'm nuts not to love French food, but it has never been my favorite cuisine and there is just so little variety! But I'm not going to get started on another of my "foods I miss" stories. (Mark listens to me daydream about food just about every time we Skype. I usually start talking wistfully about turkey sandwiches and Sunday brunch.) But I'll just get hungry if I start that now. Pictures:
The (very cool) Milan cathedral. It's very elaborate both inside and out. And extremely clean. Though, for some inexplicable reason, it allows DKNY to advertise on the side of it. Seems a bit out of character for the country where the Pope lives. (Or, well, the country where the country where the Pope lives is located.)
P.S. What's all this about the Pope retiring? First Pope to retire since the 15th century or something crazy like that.
P.P.S. Is "Pope" even supposed to be capitalized when I use the before the word?
The fancy shopping mall of Milan. Pricey, pricey but very fancy and pretty! We walked through a few times. The ceiling is all glass and the floor is all kinds of pretty tiles and mosaics. There are also lots of cafes adjoining the Prada and Louis Vuitton stores.
More evidence of the mosaic floors and the glass roof.
The first afternoon/evening we actually ate in a restaurant right next to this galleria, which was definitely a tourist trap. As such, I was expecting the food to be sub-par...but this is Italy. So, of course, I was wrong. The pizza was still better than pretty much any pizza you'd get in America. I just had a plain margherita pizza - and it was delicious. I would doubt that there are many places in Italy that don't serve good pizza.
The center of Milan isn't huge; it was pretty easy to walk around and see everything in a short amount of time. We definitely didn't need more than a weekend to be there. (We didn't make it to Lake Como because we didn't get the center of town early enough on Friday. If we'd had a few more hours we could have seen a bit more on Friday and then gone to Lake Como on Saturday! I'm bummed about that - but not very much.) You can't really compare Milan to the other major Italian cities: Florence, Venice, Rome. It's really nothing in comparison. My grandfather put it well in saying that while the other big cities feel very ancient and historical, Milan feels much more modern and less in touch with those ancient roots. But if you consider Milan on its own and not in comparison to the rest of Italy, it's really a very pretty city and has a lot of nice things to see. It was definitely nice to wander around and see the sites.
In the evening, Katie and I wandered around the center of town some more. Friday was my birthday, so we stopped in a cafe and had some gelato and wine to celebrate.
Yum.
Here's where the night gets a bit rough though. Katie and I headed back to the apartment where we were staying with some other assistants. We had to meet them since we only had one set of keys to the apartment. They were late in getting back because they were stuck waiting for a tram to show up so they could get back, so Katie and I ended up sitting outside in the freezing weather for about 40 minutes. (We opened a bottle of wine we'd bought to try to warm up a bit.) When the other assistants came back we went inside the courtyard of the apartment complex and went to open the apartment door...which refused to budge. I had locked the door when we left, so it was completely bizarre that the lock refused to turn. After several calls to the owners, they eventually showed up - and found themselves out of luck with the lock as well. At this point, Katie and I had been outside for about an hour and a half and it was almost 11pm. The owners were apologizing and after being unsuccessful at either opening the door or finding the seven of us different accommodations, told us we would have to come stay at their house. (For some reason it wasn't possible to break the door or get the locksmith to come out since it was Friday night.) We were, of course, thrilled about this. But, the birthday gods were friendly, and on our way to the owners' house, one got a call that the locksmith guy actually could come and open the door for us. He asked us to go wait in McDonald's right by the apartment. Which was definitely not the place I wanted to spend the evening.
Luckily, McDonald's in Italy is cleaner than in the United States... and it serves beer. Katie and I promptly bought French fries and beer (well, Katie bought the fries and beer because she said this was a pretty crappy birthday evening for me) and sat down with the other girls. (Later I got a second beer from Gemma, one of the other assistants - she agreed that this wasn't the greatest birthday evening.) At the time, the evening was not so great (minus the friendly people buying me beers). But, in retrospect, pretty funny. And most definitely the only time I'm going to spend not only a birthday in Italy - but a birthday in McDonald's in Italy. Well also, drinking beer in a McDonald's. Cause that's not happening anytime soon in America.
The McDonald's crew.
Saturday ran much more smoothly than Friday. Katie and I got up early and went right to the cathedral to climb to the top. The roof of the cathedral is pretty amazing, and you can walk all over it, which is very cool. It's very elaborate and has lots of creepy gargoyles and weird statues. You can also see the Alps from the top!
The path around the roof and an example of a creepy gargoyle (what a gargoyle should look like!)
VERY cool roof.
Another shot of the roof. This time new and improved because it includes Katie.
I took this to try and show the Alps in the background. They're a bit obscured by haze, but they're out there. They're enormous and very beautiful! I was pretty excited to be so close to them!
One more shot of the roof. Can you tell how clean it is? Most major cathedrals in major cities are super clean - but I really noticed the cleanliness of this one. Come to think of it, Milan was very clean in general.
Apart from stopping for coffee about four times (ohh Italy actually knows how to do coffee, unlike France which only serves itty-bitty little espressos - I just wanted a giant cup of American-style coffee), we went to the Milan castle as well. It's full of a bunch of "mini-museums," but the coolest attraction was Michelangelo's last statue that he ever worked on. He never finished it - because he died - but it was interesting to see what his statues looked like when he had just started them, particularly when thinking about what the David looks like. It's absolutely amazing what he could do with a piece of marble. The castle itself was monstrous, and we wandered around the grounds a bit and out to a park behind the castle as well.
One of the fancy courtyards of the castle.
The main central area of the castle. This place was just enormous. It was built centuries ago and was restored/redecorated/rebuilt/changed/etc. a bunch over the various monarchies who lived there. Also, the insignia in the main tower was of a dragon eating a human. No idea why.
A park/carnival on the other side of the castle.
The front of the castle. Look at the rainbow in the fountain! Can't you see why this weather would make me crazy? The only time I see a rainbow in Perigueux is when it stops raining for 15 minutes, the sun comes out to taunt everyone, and then the clouds roll back in and dump 1000 gallons of water down on us again. (I really can't wait for spring; I'm assuming the weather will be better then. I also know I could never live in a place like Seattle.)
After the castle, we ate some doughy/meaty/cheesy goodness (and cannoli) for lunch from a food stand. And then we stopped for more coffee.
Lunch.
We ended the afternoon by walking over to the incredibly expensive designer shopping district of Milan. Fashion capital of the world? Yes. While it was not so fun to see dresses and shoes (ohhhh the shoes) priced at 2000 euro, it was fun to see all the new styles. Though apparently pastels are in style this season...? Ew. I think I'm going to skip that trend.
The shopping district was pretty and full of really rich people. It was a good place to window shop though. I hate window shopping when the clothing is reasonably priced. But when it's absurdly priced - well then who cares? Since I'll never be able to afford it, I might as well enjoy staring at the crazy shoes and dresses! It's almost more like looking at museum displays rather than shop windows.
Pretty courtyard in the expensive shopping district.
Feeling festive for Valentine's Day! Everyone deserves a $3500 pair of shoes! Women and men.
And that about sums it up. We ate pizza again for dinner and had some good, cheap Italian wine. Sunday was an incredibly long day of traveling, but I arrived back in Perigueux and did absolutely nothing for teaching today. So a weekend well spent!
Don't worry, today was fine, it was okay that I didn't prepare.
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