Ed and Annette's Excellent European Adventure: Last day in Milan

We are in Milan for just two days so luckily most of the historical and interesting sites are close enough to see in a short period of time. We headed out today to walk the town starting in the fashion district (shopping). We didn't quite get to the right streets to see all the high end stuff but that is ok. (Says Ed!)

We walked to the castle palace and were amazed by its beauty and the surrounding park. The only thing that spoils it is there are dozens of Africans there trying to tie a string on your wrist and get you to pay for it or hawking cheap wares. They are all very aggressive and the city of Milan should take some sort of steps to prevent this; it really is out of control.

After getting through the palace we got a panini and sat in the park watching a group of teens playing a pick up game of football (soccer). It was entertaining to watch and hear the banter and cheers in Italian. After feeling a little rested we headed off to see more sights. We were close to the church where the Last Supper painting is housed and even though we didn't make reservations we thought we would see if we could get in. They said they had 4 slots at 6:30 pm and we grabbed them up.

Having four hours to spend before returning we walked to a couple more churches and were amazed by the beauty inside that was often not apparent from outside. We had seen an "American Coffee House," Arnold's. It looked like a Starbucks (which there are NONE in Italy) and we needed a fix. The place was ok, better than what we had experienced but a long way from Starbucks quality. We headed back to the hotel to drop off some shopping bags and to rest for an hour before meeting up and heading back.

We rode the metro back to the area near the painting and headed over to the church. Gathering our audio player we moved into the waiting area in anticipation of our 15 minutes to view the painting. Once inside we were thrilled to see this historical and beautiful painting. Having a major restoration and continued upkeep the paining is not in too bad of shape; it is about 600 years old. The narrative gave us lots of facts and many things to talk about after the viewing. This was a great experience and we feel very blessed to have been able to get in on such short notice.

We headed back toward the hotel and stopped at a brick oven pizza place; finally getting a pizza that resembled the ones at home. It was very good and we happily walked back to the hotel to rest up for our move to Switzerland tomorrow.