A Trip to Milan Featuring Grace!

I finally finished all of those final papers, just in time to fly down to Milan, Italy, for a week to spend time with my friend Grace. She’s currently studying in Florence, Italy, and was on spring break for the week, and Milan ended up being the cheapest place for us to meet up.

It was fantastic to see her again, and I’m really glad we were able to meet up. Although neither of us would really consider Milan the best city we’ve ever been to, we did have a great time. We got lost several times by going in the wrong direction, found our favorite pizza place, and had lots and lots of gelato. We honestly had so much gelato, that I haven’t really gone into detail below about the different gelato places we tried, partially because I can’t fully place them on an exact timeline.

Also, this might be making the problem more noticeable, but if some corners of the photos are weirdly dark or black, that’s a problem I’ve been running into with my phone lately and I’m not sure what’s causing it. I thought it was my phone case bending in a weird way, but pulling it back beforehand didn’t fix it, and I don’t see anything on the lens. It’s just something I have to live with for now.

Sunday: Exploring Milan

We both arrived late Saturday night, so Sunday was our first full day in Milan. We had planned to go to a market to buy some breakfast food for the week, but unfortunately there wasn’t one open. So instead, we visited a regular grocery store for some basic food before we headed into the city.

We found the cathedral (aka the Duomo), and the mall. We had planned to go to the Duomo on Monday, so we didn’t go inside yet. Instead, we wandered through the mall right beside the cathedral,  and spent a lot of time inside a bookstore there. The mall itself is somewhat open air; there’s a glass dome covering the inside, but the four entrances are all tall, open arches, so you don’t feel like you’re inside.

The site director for Grace’s study abroad program actually used to live in Milan, and had given her a bunch of recommendations of places to eat. We tried going to one place, walking across the city. Unfortunately, that restaurant ended up being a bust for us. It was mostly a bar, and there wasn’t any sort of menu where we could see prices for food or anything, not that they seemed to have much. Most Italian restaurants were closed by that point (it was around 3pm, and in Italy restaurants are generally closed between lunch and dinner), so we decided to just try and get some hot chocolate to tide us over instead.

That first day, we didn’t have metro tickets, and according to my Health App, we walked a little over 10 miles that day. To be fair, a good amount of those steps were the result of us starting off in the wrong direction and walking a block or two before our GPS registered it. Or, as in the case of the first cafe we looked up to try and get hot chocolate, we walked right past our destination without realizing because it was closed and boarded up. And then walked in the wrong direction when trying to find it again.

Eventually, we ended up back at the Duomo (a theme for us in the coming days it would seem), and got hot chocolate there. We sat at a table outside, and noticed a giant queue of people lined up outside of a media store. It took a while to figure out what was going on there, but the magic of Instagram showing us recent posts tagged with our location, we found out that a music artist, Nayt, was doing a signing. We briefly entertained the idea of getting in line despite having no idea who he was. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to capture the humor of the moment in a blog post, but we certainly found the situation amusing.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant and tried the local dish, Risotto Milanese, which is a risotto with saffron and parmesan. It tasted really good! The red is a veal sauce.

Monday: The Duomo

On Monday, we headed into the city and climbed the stairs to the rooftop of the Duomo first thing. The weather on our second day was much clearer than on the first day, and once we’d reached the top we could even see the Alps in the distance. It was really neat being on top of the roof, and seeing some of the statues and stonework up close was also cool. A portion of the roof was closed off to the public, I think for restoration work. There was still plenty to see, however. Below are some of my favorite photos from the rooftop of the Duomo.

Originally, we had planned to go inside the Cathedral before lunch, and go to a museum after lunch. But the line was long enough that by the time we got in and out, most restaurants would be closed until dinner time. So instead, we headed to what ended up being our favorite restaurant: Pizzeria Piccola Ischia. Not only was it cheap, but the pizzas were delicious. The first time we went, I got a pizza with sausage on it, but my favorite pizza ended up being the Biancaneve, a white pizza with a couple of cheeses and basil.

After lunch, we headed back to the Duomo and finally headed into the Cathedral itself. It was really beautiful inside, with gorgeous stained glass. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside of the Duomo itself. Afterwards, we sat outside of the Duomo for a while talking, before heading back to the hostel a little early to prep and plan for the next day.

Tuesday: “Boat Party!” aka an excursion to Lake Como

This was probably my favorite day of the trip. Just 90 minutes north of the city is Lake Como, and we had decided to take a day trip there after hearing so many good things about it. We had to sprint through one of the train stations in Milan to catch our train, but it was definitely worth it.

 

Como was beautiful. It’s at the bottom of the Alps, and all around the late were all these tall, gorgeous mountains, rising up with little towns dotting their sides. We made our way down to the docks, stopping to get lunch at a panini place. Once we actually got to the lake shore itself and saw the water, it took our breath away. It was so beautiful. It took a while, but we eventually found where we could buy boat tickets to go to some of the smaller towns along the lake. While we waited for the boat to arrive, we went and got the best gelato I’ve ever had. I got a chocolate sorbet, the darkest chocolate ice cream I’ve ever had, and a toasted almond flavor. I was surprised by how much I loved the almond flavor.

A couple of months ago, I finally got Grace to listen to a podcast I love called Friends at the Table (if you haven’t listened to it, you should, it’s amazing, I have cried tears of laughter and sadness both). In one of the first few episodes (minor spoilers ahead), the characters trick a drunk sea captain into sailing them to their destination, and the captain would yell “Boat party!” in different tones to get his also-drunk-sailors to do certain things. Each time he yelled it, one of the players would yell back “Boat party!” in response. So of course, when we got on a boat Grace and I started calling “Boat Party” back and forth to each other.

It was so gorgeous there. The water was so blue and reflected the mountains and the skies, and the towns along the shore were pretty. The weather was also perfect, for me at least. It was sunny and warm enough that my t-shirt was fine, but cool enough I didn’t feel too hot.

We took the boat to a tiny town called Torno, where we disembarked. Torno is probably better described as a village, and felt very empty and peaceful. We wandered through different alleyways and streets, most of which did not seem remotely intended for cars. This led to an amusing sight — we saw a car drive up a bunch of wide steps, after it had gotten to a dead end. Unfortunately, we were not quick enough to get a video of it. When planning the trip to Lake Como, we wanted to go to one of the free beaches. Although we could’ve walked to one nearby, we found a small area of the shore we could dip our feet into in Torno.

Eventually, we made our way back to the dock in Torno, feeding some ducks before boarding the boat back to Como. We wandered around Como some more, getting more gelato from Gelateria Guidi, the place we went earlier. For dinner in Milan, we went back to the pizza place we went to on Tuesday. The server recognized us from the day before, and this time they made our pizzas in the shape of a heart, which was cool. Grace mentioned that a pizza place in Florence does that for girls in general, but we think this restaurant did it mostly because we we came back a second time. Either way, it was cool.

Wednesday: Resting Up

We decided ahead of time to have Wednesday as a more chill day to relax. We slept in, found a nearby self-service laundromat to wash some clothes, and stopped by a grocery store to get more food for breakfasts and lunch. There’s not much to say for Wednesday, really.

Thursday: Leonardo’s Day

On Thursday, we first went to the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci” (the National Museum of the Science and Technology of Leonardo da Vinci).  There were a lot of interesting exhibits, the first one we saw showed a bunch of models of different inventions from Leonardo da Vinci. Another one was mostly about the history of food, another one was a bunch of cars, a room modeling what a clock-maker’s workshop would’ve looked like in the past, an exhibit on space and missions to space. We really probably only saw a third of the museum, due to time constraints, and even within that there was a lot of variation in the exhibits. My favorite exhibit was one on radio communication, with interactive elements where you would figure out how to build a radio, or could see how a radio worked.

For a brief moment, ABBA, but we had to settle for some jazzy tunes instead.

Part of the reason why we couldn’t spend more time in the museum to see the rest of the exhibits was because we also wanted to go to the Santa Maria della Grazie, better known as the church that has Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. We had tried to buy tickets online ahead of time, but they seemed sold out. We decided we would go anyway and see if they sold same-day tickets. As the church and museum were only open for limited times on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we needed to get there in a timely fashion. Unfortunately for us, they did not sell same-day tickets, and spots to go see the painting were sold out for two weeks out. We still went to go see the inside of the church, and spent some time in the courtyard taking a break.

After the church, we headed back into the center of the city (to our old friend, the Duomo) to get some hot chocolate (which is basically just melted chocolate, I had mine with strawberries). Right after getting hot chocolate, I noticed a Ferrari store and went inside. There were Legos, clothes, and other merch. I’m sure dad and the boys would’ve enjoyed going there. In the basement floor of the store they had two game stations set up, where you could play the PS4 F1 racing game while sitting in a mock Ferrari car. We also wandered into some of the tourist shops around the Duomo for me to find a postcard, and found masquerade masks in one. Though we resisted the temptation to buy them.

We sat around the square for a while, since we didn’t really have any plans until dinner but needed to wait for the restaurants to start opening. Before we headed out, we took a selfie outside of the Duomo, and then a photography student came up and said that she needed to take portraits of people for her class. After we posed for her, we asked her to take a photo of us together, which was lucky for us.

Friday: Cat Castle

Friday was our last full day in Milan, and so we planned to hit most the last several things we wanted to see in the city. First on the list, Castle Sforza.

The castle hosted a bunch of smaller museums, and we only really went through one of the buildings, which focused on antique art and armor. We looked at the list of the other museums available inside the different parts of the castle and decided that we weren’t super interested in most of the other museums. We went out to the courtyard of the castle to walk around a bit, and this is where our day went from good to great.

As we were walking around the castle grounds, we spotted something in the distance. A cat. Like any reasonable person, we got super excited and rushed over to see the kitty. We got near it just as it went through the slats of a gate to a porch above where the moat used to be. And then we realized, it was not just one cat, but two- no, three– four cats! We took photos of them through the gate, and as we were standing up to go, we spotted a fifth cat, sitting on the stairs beneath the porch (you can see the gap to the stairs in the photo to the right).

It was this point that we realized that there was a full cat colony living here. As much as I want to add all of the cat photos here, I will spare you. Just know that by the time we left the castle, we had seen more than 15 cats walking around or sleeping in the sun in and around the moat. We then walked around the large park behind the castle for a while. It was so pretty there, and a lot of people were out enjoying the weather.

After a stop for gelato, we headed to a modern art museum, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Milano. There was a lot of fantastic art in the museum, from paintings to sculptures.

The last place we went before dinner was the Navigli District. The district is known for the series of canals throughout it. Unfortunately, most of the canals were dry or only partially filled. We found a nice area to sit down and rest for a while, tired from the day’s activities.

Saturday: A cemetery and goodbyes

Saturday was our last day. Since we checked out of our hostel, we had to carry all of our things in our backpacks. Knowing this, we only planned to do one thing before leaving: visit the Monumental Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in Milan.

Monumental feels like an understatement. The grounds of the cemetery were sprawling, with hundreds of graves and mausoleums, many of them works of art in their own right. And inside of the buildings were hundreds more graves along the walls. It may be macabre, but it was also beautiful.

Also, while we were taking a break from walking around, a cat walked up to us and let us pet it. It was so unexpected; we’d seen it sitting 20 feet away and immediately hoped it would come closer. And then it did. We felt blessed, honestly, even if the cat’s color generally represents bad luck.

We went and had lunch at, you guessed it, Pizzaria Piccola Ischia, again, though at another one of their different locations that was closer to the Monumental Cemetery. We managed to get gelato one last time, and then it was time for us to head to the central station to leave Milan. I had to get a bus to the airport, and Grace had to catch a train back to Florence. Not going to lie, tears were shed when we said goodbye.

It was sad to say goodbye, but I’m mostly just glad that we got to visit each other at all. And I’m looking forward to being roommates with her and our other friends at Etown next year!

The Week Between, and Heidelberg

Since getting back from Italy, I’ve had a relatively relaxing week. Since the first three weeks of break were stressful and filled with writing papers, I took the opportunity to bake some cookies, binge some TV, and read a book (I’m rereading Good Omens in anticipation for the new show). I probably wouldn’t have mentioned this week much in this post, since this post is plenty long already and sitting around doesn’t quite compare to Milan. Except I was invited with some friends for a trip to Heidelberg, a city that we can travel to for free with our semester tickets.

Heidelberg feels like a much larger city than Marburg, and it’s beautiful there. We walked up to the castle, a much steeper walk than the walk up to Marburg’s castle. Heidelberg’s castle is also much larger, even though it’s mostly ruins now. We didn’t go inside of the castle, because it was going to close soon and we didn’t want to pay for it. But it was still great to take photos outside of it and of the view of the city. We had a nice time hanging out, and the sore feet after walking more than 8 miles was worth it.

It’s going to be a while before I post again, as this Sunday my parents and brothers are flying to Europe, and classes start not long after they leave.

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What I’m listening to this week: Haven’t You Noticed by Grace McLean and Them Apples. I struggled picking a song this week, because often when chilling out, Grace and I would share music with each other, so I’ve been listening to a lot of new music, some Italian, some not. This song is what’s currently stuck in my head as I finish writing this post.