My trip to Milan was the first trip outside of Spain since coming here via Munich in September. It did not disappoint and proved to be a great choice for us. Once again, myself, Ellen, Julie, and Lucia left together on another adventure towards a far away land. The road would at times prove to be a challenge, but as we continue to journey around our European home, I feel now that I am ready for whatever comes next.
On Thursday, we departed from Baeza on a mid afternoon bus that took us up to Madrid. The ride is approximately four hours and not too bad of a trip with a good Spanish novel and my ipod. Both of which I am never without these days on our weekend excursions. Once in Madrid, Ellen and I parted ways with Julie and Lucia. Ellen and I had decided to stay in a cheap hostel Ellen had found, while Julie and Lucia had decided to try the exciting world of couch surfing. I think it was more or less a success although apparently the guy was a bit of a creeper. But you’ll have to ask Lucia about that. As for Ellen and I, our hostel was actually great. Really cheap, clean, and friendly. We did have one other guy in our room, but he returned late that night and we were up early to catch our flight. After settling in we went on a nice little walk from our hostel down towards the Plaza Mayor, which was a nice treat at night. Although I am anxious for the next time I am in Madrid, so that I can do a bit more exploring in the day. We then met up with Julie, Lucia, and Enrique, their couch surfing host, where he showed us some good places to go eat. We then found a nice little place where I had another menú diario (daily menu) of 10 euros. I believe I had Spanish tortilla as my main dish on this occasion. Afterwards, Ellen and I headed back towards our hostel with a quick pit-stop at a Mexican restaurant. We had seen it on our way and Ellen desperately wanted to try a margarita, of which she never had before. It was actually quite good and even with its Mexican origins, made me think a bit about home again. After making it back to our hostel, we quickly went right to bed so that we would be well rested for our trip the next morning.
Our flight from Madrid left at 9:00 that morning. Ellen and I checked out and then made our way to the airport where we met Julie and Lucia. The flight was very quick. Only about an hour and a half and since we were not checking any baggage, it was quick and painless. Upon our arrival in Milan, we found a bus from the airport to one of the main train/metro stations in Milan. The airport is actually quite a ways from the center of the city. Waiting for us in Milan that Friday was plenty of rain and paired with the traffic, our bus ride ended up taking nearly two and a half hours. Not exactly fun. We then found the necessary subway line to our hotel and after a little confusion of where exactly it was, we had arrived. (It appears to me that in Europe in general, accurate maps and street signs are things that are not necessities. A little strange to me and often difficult as a tourist.) The hotel was nothing special but ended up being just right. The room was not great, but the shower was fine, everyone had a bed, and it was fairly clean. The staff was also very friendly and even had a pet dog that was often sleeping on one of the couches in the lounge. A male boxer named Loci. Very cool.
Finding a pizzeria that was very close to our hotel was our next order of business, which we were able to do almost immediately. They do pizza right in Italy. I had pizza a few times over the next few days and was never disappointed. Due to the constant rain on that day, we took the metro to an area that had several museums. Julie and I chose to spend most of our time in the Museum of Natural History, while Ellen and Lucia went to one the art galleries. My experience was great. The museum had a lot to see and some very cool dioramas. After wandering inside there for a couple of hours, we headed in the direction of our hotel to find a restaurant for dinner. I had a very big meal for a pretty fair price (risotto milanese). We then bought some wine and headed back to our hotel. We were tired, wet, and the rain was not stopping. I hate to say it, but that first day was actually pretty miserable. Not a whole lot of things you want to do when you are in the shape that we were. We called it an early night and pledged to go all out on Saturday.
In the morning, we began the day at Castello Sforzesco. Originally constructed in the 14th century, the castle has seen many changes and renovations. Today it consists of an enormous courtyard in the center and many museums which are inside the still covered castle walls. Outside of the castle, there is even a section of the original wall that is still standing. Another interesting fact is that the origins of Milan date all the way back to the 5th century BC and the Celtic peoples who first came here. It is a very old city.
After touring the castle in the morning, we headed to the Santa Maria delle Grazie, the location of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Before coming here to Milan, I had not realized that the location of such an important piece of art was located in a place that is not a tenth as impressive. The church is a nice little place, but is incomparable to the Duomo, which we were to see soon. Probably in large part due to the popular book and movie The Da Vinci Code, the painting has been of interest to me and I was quite excited to see it. However, if any of you are heading to Milan in the future, be sure to book a reservation in advance. We luckily received word from a friend of ours that you needed a reservation to go and see the painting. Upon arriving at your designated time, you are ushered into a waiting room with the 30 other people that have also reserved that 15 minute time slot. From here you are moved into another room via an automatic door. This room and the subsequent ones are along the courtyard on the interior of the church. Sorry I have no pictures here. From this room, you are then sent into another room via an automatic door that closes behind you after entering. Then, once again you repeat the process and enter into your last waiting room through another set of automatic doors. Due to the current condition of the painting and the huge amount of work they have done to continue its existence, they do everything they can to allow no outside light and humidity to enter the room. Quite a process. When you finally enter the room, you see that it is inside a large hall with two paintings at each end. At one of these ends is The Last Supper. It was unbelievable. I do not consider myself a very religious man but standing in front of that painting really made me stop and think. About God, Christianity, and really the history of religion itself. Not just here at the site of such an historically important work, but when you see the things I have seen in my short time here already, it really makes you think. Why do men build such unbelievable cathedrals, make such artistic works, or devote their lives to a cause that we know so little about? I cannot help but history and my participation in it. The painting, if only, helped to evoke such thoughts.
Our next stop, was the Plaza Duomo and it was yet another impressive sight. The Duomo itself is unbelievably big with a capacity of 40,000 people. Inside, the building is of the baroque time period with huge columns and paintings hanging alongside the pews. It is fairly dark inside due to the small number of windows. However, as cool as the inside was, the climb to the top nearly matched it. Although you have to pay a rather steep five euros to make the trip, it was well worth it. After a series of winding steps, you emerge at an area that is not quite all the way at the top. Here you walk from the side of the cathedral, towards the front where you make your final ascent. Finally at the top, I found myself in front of a scene that was completely unexpected. There was honestly a small get together occurring on the roof of the cathedral. Probably 60-70 people were simply sitting on the roof, checking out the sights, and enjoying the afternoon. Here I was, on the roof of one of the biggest and most important cathedrals in existence, and there was a small party going on. I took some time to walk around the edge of the roof and check out the city below me, as well as the mountains. Then I joined the rest of the crowd, found a spot to sit down and relax, and soaked myself in the moment.
After returning back to the city below, we then decided to check out all of the shopping that Milan has to offer. They don’t call it the fashion capitol of the world for nothing. Everything seemed to be very expensive and way out of my price range. But it was a really nice scene. Inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, you can find such shops as Gucci, Prada, Louis Vitton, and many others. Not exactly where I do my shopping, but it was definitely fun to see it all. However, I was a bit disappointed to find a McDonald’s smack in the little of this fashion mecca. It just didn’t seem to fit in my mind. Outside of the Galleria the shopping continues. There are several pedestrian streets with shops all over the place. I even managed to find one where I purchased a coat, a nice jacket, and even a fleece. I probably packed a little light in this area when I left home in the US. The girls obviously enjoyed all of these places much more than I did, but just walking down these was fun for me. There was an exhibit with photos of planets, stars, the earth, and other celestial bodies that was really cool. I busied myself here as opposed to walking into every store along the way.
Done with shopping for the day, we stopped at a nice pizzeria that we found. It was really good and a fun place to go eat. I had a four cheese pizza that was excellent. (not to mention a large part of Julie’s) We then wandered back to the Plaza Duomo to take it in at night. Here we also found a film festival that was displaying sports documentaries from around the world. It was free, so we walked in and watched a bit on a famous Portuguese football player, although I can’t remember his name. It was a rags to riches story, due to the fact that he was a gypsy. It was pretty interesting. Maybe you know who I’m speaking of? From here, we took a walk down towards the river and walked along that for awhile before finding a small bar where we sat outside and enjoyed a drink before heading back towards our hotel. We also made our plans for the next day, which was to be our last in Milan.
Sunday we slept in a bit and then headed over to the Teatro alla Scala. We were disappointed though. It was closing because there was a performance later that night. I was sad we couldn’t go in and see it, but I guess I have a reason to come back! From here we headed to the train station and purchased our tickets to Lake Como for the day. The train ride is approximately an hour and the tickets quite cheap. We arrived early that afternoon at the city of Como and walked from the station out towards the lake. It was astonishingly beautiful. To be completely honest, words cannot express how wonderful I thought this place was. The lake is wonderful, the town is beautiful, and the weather great. We spent the day walking through the town, looking at shops (I bought a scarf), seeing the Duomo in this city, and checking out the old city walls and towers that still stand today. The shopping was still expensive, but I think that just must be Italy. And the Duomo here was very nice, but obviously on a much smaller scale than the one in Milan. When the sun began to go down, which was early due to the hills and mountains surrounding us, we walked out onto the extended pier that takes you out onto the lake. It was really peaceful out there and pretty at night. Afterwards we walked back along the lake until we found a nice little restaurant just off of it and had our last Italian meal of our trip. I had a very tasty spaghetti bolognese and the bottle of wine we drank was a bit pricey but really good. Finally we hopped back on the train and headed towards Milan. When we made it back, we stopped by the sports film festival again and watched a really cool documentary on snowkiting. The filmmaker was in the audience so we even got a chance to talk with him after. He was American and the film was shot in Wyoming and Idaho. Very cool.
The rest of the trip was also memorable but not exactly enjoyable. We had checked out of our hotel that morning because our flight home was at 6:00 am on Monday and we thought that we would save some money and stay out late before heading to the airport. Well even though we were in Milan, it was still Sunday night and nothing was really open. So we headed to the train station where our bus would leave for the airport at 4:15 that next morning. Until then we spent the hours in the train station waiting area with a lot of other people doing the same thing we were. We played cards, read, and met a group of American students studying abroad in Florence. We then took the hour long bus to the airport where we flew to Madrid. Then we hopped on a bus to Granada because there was no bus to Baeza until the evening. After that five hour ride, we made it to Granada a little before 5 pm where we waited until 6:30 pm for our bus to Baeza. Upon arriving in Baeza at 8:30, I collapsed in my bed. It was the end of a long day that started long ago in the train station of Milan. Ugh.
As for my next trip, I’m not quite sure yet where we are going or when. But I will be sure to post again with the next bit of exciting news that I have for you all.
Keep in touch as always.
1 comment:
You're going to come back a missionary.
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