Last Day in Milan

On Sunday we had the most beautiful weather of our trip.  While it had been raining Friday and Saturday, Sunday started out with warm weather and clear skies.  We decided to head back to a couple of places that the tour bus had passed the previous day but was too rainy and raw to enjoy.  For some reason we skipped breakfast, later in the day we would pay for this mistake, and we walked about a half mile to the nearest trolley stop and boarded a trolley towards Naviglio Grande, which is one of a series of canals that once ran throughout the city.  It was built in the 1200’s originally for irrigation but eventually was used, well into the 1900’s, for transporting goods.  Today many of the canals have been covered over or filled in but the Naviglio Grande remains lined with shops, cafes and restaurants.  While we were there the canal seemed kind of dry but we enjoyed exploring the area on the nice clear day.  On one of the bridges spanning the canal we spotted more “love padlocks” like we had seen on the Brooklyn Bridge just a month or so ago.

Love padlocks

We were going to board our tour bus again to take us to the other side of the city but we figured that a trolley would be much quicker as the tour bus was not due for 40 more minutes and it took a zig-zagging route through the city while the trolleys ran every 5-10 minutes and were far more direct.  The trolleys run somewhat on an honor system but rarely does anyone check for tickets.  You cannot pay on board but you should have some kind of rail pass or ticket that you can buy in subway stops.  We had purchased a 24-hour ticket the day before and as fate would have it there were two plainclothes transit officials checking for tickets on our trolley.  They were just going up to people and asking to see their tickets.  We saw them writing a ticket to a guy who apparently did not have a ticket but we thankfully did not try to cheat the system.  

One of the many trolleys around town

We took the trolley to the north side of the city to a large cemetery that we had read about called Cimitero Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery).  What caught our attention and made us decide to come there was the abundance of artistic tombs and monuments throughout the cemetery.  We could have easily spent an entire day exploring this large cemetery.  Many of the tombs and elaborate statues were truly impressive, as was the main entrance which was through a large marble and stone chapel. 

Angel of death in the guise of a young man welcoming the soul of the deceased

Parting Kiss by Emilio Quadrelli

After leaving the chapel we decided to go to a bookstore, something that had certainly not been on our list just the day before.  The night before we got a message from our Uncle Timmy alerting us to an article that listed the “18 Bookstores that every book lover must visit at least once”.  As it turned out one of them was in Milan so we decided to check it out.  The bookstore was a little more than a half mile walk from the cemetery which took us about 15 minutes to get to.  The bookstore was actually quite tiny and sold books mostly relating to art, fashion, and architecture but the draw of the place seemed to be the tucked away location and nice outdoor garden like atmosphere.  

10 Corso Como entrance

Inside the book store

Cafe downstairs, art & books upstairs

We then boarded the sightseeing bus once more for our ride back toward downtown.  The sightseeing bus has 3 routes and we had not yet taken this route so we got to see another part of the city that we hadn’t seen the day before.  After waiting for what seemed like forever our bus finally showed up.  They do run on a schedule but traffic obviously had a big effect on whether or not they run on time.  We were actually quite hungry by now, having skipped both breakfast and lunch.  We rode for about 40 minutes, again zig-zagging through the city and we got off near the Duomo once again and started seeking out a place to eat.  

We quickly found a place to eat.  We were initially going to eat outside again but the outdoor seating area at this place was not heated and it was later in the afternoon and quite cold.  We each ordered some regional specialties: risotto alla milanese, which is a mix of rice, saffron, grated cheese, butter, wine, and chicken stock.  We also had ossobuco, which are veal shanks cooked until the meat falls off the bone, then cooked with tomatoes, vegetables, and white wine.  We also enjoyed some Italian beer and wine.  As was the case the previous night we found that our poor Italian speaking skills were just enough to get by.  (Actually Jackie understood and could read far more than we thought we would know, which allowed us to get quite easily)

San Carlo Bistro

Risotto

Free dessert

We then headed back to the Duomo where we had intended to climb to the top of and get a great view of the city at night.  Unfortunately, the stairs to the top closed around 5 this time of the year and we had missed our opportunity.  We did enjoy exploring the area around the Duomo and checking out close up this massive church.  We could now see why it took nearly 600 years to complete.  The level of detail carved into the building was truly amazing.

Duomo Plaza at night

Some of the details on the Duomo

We then headed back to our hotel to pick up our luggage which we had dropped off with the concierge earlier in the day. Our flight was at 10 the next morning and we were staying at a hotel much closer to the airport that night.  We got back to our Marriott, grabbed our luggage and got a taxi for the train station.  As we were about to get into the taxi one of the employees of the hotel came running out to tell us we left something in our room and it was at the lounge on the 7^th floor.  So Jackie got in the cab, with the meter running, while Chris went searching for our missing bag.  We were sure we hadn’t left anything but they said we did so we had to check it out.  While Chris was inside and Jackie was sitting in the back of the cab with the meter running, a guy got into the front seat of the cab and told the driver to take him someplace.  The driver started driving away, forcing Jackie to tell “No!”  The driver looked at Jackie then looked at the other passenger, who looked at Jackie with an angry look on his face.  He knew Jackie was in the cab when he got in but must have thought they were going to share the cab or something.  The driver insisted he get out and get in another cab while he waited for Chris to come back downstairs.  As it turns out we did not leave a bag in the hotel, it was someone else’s bag.  Once we got that mess straightened out we headed for the train station and boarded our train for the airport.

Train for the airport

Once at the airport we grabbed the hotel’s shuttle for the quick 5 minute ride to our hotel, which we arrived at around 10 PM (and stayed for free using points!).  We got a good nights’ sleep and caught the shuttle for the airport around 8 the next morning.  We had one more adventure before leaving the hotel.  While we were sitting on the crowded shuttle bus about to leave (there were probably 30 people on the bus), Chris had a bad thought enter his head:  where are the passports?  He could not remember where he put them so he figured he must have left them in the room.  Chris told Jackie to take the bus to the airport and wait there for him while he got off and went back to the room to make sure the passports were not there.  We could not risk getting to the airport and then searching for the passports because the bus ran every 30 minutes and we would easily lose an hour in getting to the airport, searching, taking a bus back and then going to our room.  At least this way we would only lose 30 minutes while Chris went upstairs, checked, then grabbed the next bus to the airport.  Chris ran off of the bus just as it was about to leave and asked at the front desk for a key to the room we had just checked out of.  They gave him a key, he ran upstairs and lo and behold, there were the passports sitting on the desk.  Jackie usually checks for last minute things but for whatever reason neither of us did this time.  Chris went back downstairs expecting to sit around for 25 minutes for the next bus but discovered that the bus driver saw him get off and decided to wait for him.  There were probably 30 unhappy people on that bus, but Chris never expected him to wait.  We were glad he did because it took us nearly an hour to navigate through check-in, customs and security and walk to our gate.  Another 30 minutes would have been cutting it close and another hour would have made it far too close for comfort as we would have likely had to run around the airport and we still may have missed our plane.

We finally boarded our plane, which this time was practically empty.  The rows in coach were 7 across, 2 seats by the window, an aisle followed by 3 middle seats, another aisle and 2 more seats by the window.  We were seated 3 rows from the back and there was not a single person behind us on the plane nor was there anyone else in our row of 7.  So theoretically we had 21 seats to ourselves.  Jackie grabbed a middle row of seats to lie in while Chris stayed in the seat by the window and spread out into the open seat next to him.  In the seats in front of us on the plane most people were also able to spread out just like we did.  We watched probably 4 or 5 movies on our 8 hour flight home but we were very relaxed and well rested when we arrived at Newark where we grabbed a rental car (again free using points!) for the trip back to Rockland County.

Our empty plane