Wednesday, December 15th, we left the hotel very early because we were headed back to Charles de Gaulle airport to fly to Italy. After the LONG drive into the city, I felt like we had to leave plenty of time to get to the airport and of course we got there in record time.
I was worried about all the requirements to fly to Italy, but I had all our paperwork in order and everything went smoothly. We had plenty of time to have one last Pain au chocolat!
The flight was probably not even a quarter full, but they had us all crammed together in the middle of the plane instead of letting us spread out. Our flight left at 9:10 and we arrived in Milan at 10:40.
We took a taxi to our hotel (more on that at the end of this post) and were able to get into our room early. We then walked down to the Metro stop and bought day passes on the Metro and took it to the Duomo stop. We walked around for a few minutes and then decided to find some lunch. I had done some research and found a few options for lunch and dinner. One of the options was a short walk from the Duomo and that's were we decided to go.
The place we ate lunch was called PIZ. It's a pizza place that only serves 3 kinds of pizza. It wasn't far from the Duomo, but was definitely a place you would have to be looking for. I don't think you would ever happen upon it because it's tucked back in a little alley way off the street. I'm pretty certain we were the only Americans there (the guy checking for Green Passes, or in our case CDC vax cards, was shocked that we were American and not Italian).
At first we thought we would just split a pizza, but then we ordered another, so we got to try 2 of their 3 and they were very yummy. Here was one...
A little video of the place...
Then we walked back to the Duomo. Like everything now, you buy timed tickets, but it wasn't crowded so they let us go in early. We had tickets for inside the cathedral and also the roof. That's one thing I like so much about the Duomo in Milan... you can walk up on the roof!
La Madonnina, a 15 foot tall gilded Virgin Mary and symbol of the city of Milan, overlooking it all...
We marveled at the statutes that are around the duomo. How the heck did they get those up there hundreds of years ago?
Here is a video I took...
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II as viewed from the Duomo roof...
As far as I could tell, this was the only guy with his butt hanging out...
One of the 96 gargoyles that function as drain spouts...
There was some cleaning/restoration going on...
Once we got down from the roof, we went inside. I do love this Duomo. I think it's really pretty. I love the ceiling, I love the giant pillars, I love the floors...
As we wondered around it was made even more special because they were practicing for a concert...
During our visit the sun and the stained glass windows were acting as a kaleidoscope with colorful reflections on the pillars...
Once we had walked around the inside of the Duomo, we walked around the Christmas Market that is outside...
We got cannolis...
We then walked to the Sforza Castle. There was supposed to be a Christmas market, but there wasn't (I assume it was cancelled). This castle was built in the 1300s as a military fortress and it guarded the gate to the city wall...
We then walked to the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. This is where The Last Supper is housed. This was the one place that you were not going to do anything earlier than your ticket said. I knew that would be the case with seeing TLS, but that was even the case with getting your dang ticket. "No, your scheduled time isn't for 17 minutes and you can only get your ticket 15 minutes before" kind of thing.
So we walked around the area. There isn't a ton to see close by. We wondered in and out of a few shops. There was some kind of talk happening and they had this courtyard open so I wondered in and took some pics from a unique angle you don't always get to see.
Finally! Our time came to get our tickets. I then discovered that I had purchased a guided tour that was only in Italian. Which was fine, I didn't want the guided tour anyway, that was just the only option for the 6:00 p.m. tickets, and since we were flying into Milan that day, I had wanted a later time just in case we had delays.
Gosh I love the Galleria...
We had dinner at a restaurant in the Galleria that my uncle had eaten at a couple of months before and recommended. We began our week of pasta and gelato eating. I had the tagliatelle and bolognese and Mom had the lasagna.
We then had gelato even though the whole time I was eating it I was saying "Oh my gosh I'm so cold! This is freezing my hand off!". Also full disclosure, this was the worst gelato we would have on the trip. The prettiest setting for eating the gelato, but the worst gelato. Now, it wasn't awful, but it just was the bottom of the heap after the considerable taste testing we would do.
I didn't visit Marchesi this time (I did last time I was there),
but I thought they had a very cute window display...
Just a few more pics and a video of some of the Christmas lights...
We took the Metro back to the hotel. As we walked in, I stopped to ask the desk if there would be taxis out front the next morning because we needed to go to the train station for our 8:15 train to Venice. The guy said, "usually but not tomorrow because of the strike".
Me: "what strike?"
Him: "it's a planned general strike tomorrow. There will be no taxis, no metro, no trains..."
Me: "I have a train to venice"
Him: "not tomorrow you don't"
Me: "is there another way to get to venice?"
Him: "you could try to hire a driver"
At this point another more helpful man called me over to his desk and he started calling the train company (I think). At first he told me we would need to get on the 6:00 a.m train to have it guaranteed. Heck, I was about to go to the train station and hop on a late night train to get to Venice! But then he got confirmation that our 8:15 was also guaranteed, but that we wouldn't have any service of drinks, etc. on the train.
I still didn't sleep great worrying about whether our train was really guaranteed. We also had to wake up extra early in case we had to walk to the train station.
Our hotel in Milan was the Westin Palace. I didn't take outside pics of the hotel, so I borrowed these...
We had a Deluxe Room, so it was quite large.
I think we voted this hotel as our favorite bed linens of the trip...
And that's a wrap on Day 3 of the trip! Stay tuned and find out whether we made it to Venice as planned...
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