Departure & First Day in Milan

A Toast to a Great Trip

We are off to our typical start with a flight delay. No worries though as we are relaxing regardless of what AirFrance throws our way. We started off the morning by tieing up loose ends.

Girls are Sad to See Us Go?

When we learned that we had an hour delay we just responded by opening a bottle of Prosecco! The parting from our girls was a little rough for me. Kailin was strong and Mackenzi was weak like me! I know they are in good hands (and many friends are looking out for them), but it was hard to leave them for the first time on there own for so long.

We arrived at the airport early so that I could do something I've never done before....sit down and enjoy a meal and glass of wine before our flight. We found a nice little wine bar and paid too much for wine and food, but it was actually very good and a nice beginning to a very long couple flights that will get us into Milan at 3pm on Monday.

Our flight was uneventful, except I got Scott in trouble when I asked him to get my glasses from my bag in the overhead bin when it was too close to take-off! Despite my efforts to make it so I could sleep on the plane (I stayed up until 2:15am and got up at 5:30am), I only managed to get about an hour of sleep. Now I'm really tired! We had a 3 hour layover in Paris and arrived in Milan at 3:30.

Took a city bus from the airport into Milan and then the subway to the area near the Duomo and the Sforza Castle. We were fortunate to find a room at the first hotel we tried. It's small and the toilette and shower are down the hall, but it's all we needed. It's close to everything we want to see.

Duomo

Took care of getting "linked" up by finding a place to buy a SIM card for my iPad. Had to wait 6 hours to use it to avoid some type of extra charges so didn't install it until this morning (Tuesday).

Stained Glass in Duomo

We walked down to the Duomo and wandered around inside for awhile....very large and incredibly beautiful. The sun was perfect to light up the huge stained glass windows. I tried to get some pictures, bit I don't think they did them justice! Nearby was an old outdoor shopping area called Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. It's in an glass domed arcade and has high end stores and over-priced restaurants. It is quite beautiful and is full of tourists. It even has a mosaic bull on the floor that people spin on it's testicles for good luck. And yes, we both spun!

Scott Spinning for Good Luck!

We then went to a little restaurant recommended by the person at the hotel for dinner. We misunderstood our waiter and thought he had moved on to our water order after our red wine order and ended up with a red wine with gas rather than red wine and water with gas!

Bowls of Wine with Dinner

Lucky mistake on our part as it was actually very good! He also served it in what I thought were soup bowls. The food was excellent and inexpensive. We had prosciutto e melon....we'd been dying to have it sine we were in Italy last as it's just not as good at home!

We walked around after dinner to keep ourselves awake. Tried to get some nice pictures of the castle and area in the twilight. I stubbed my toe trying to walk and gawk over uneven ground with potholes and messed up my pedicure! Oh well, the hazards of being a tourist. I guess I'll just have to get an Italian pedicure at some point. Poor me!

Finally went to bed around 9:30 expecting to wake up at 3am like we usually do on our first day.