Milan Day 2

On Saturday we had a busy day planned.  We would like to say we got a really early start but the jet leg seemed to catch up to us.  We slept in a little later than we planned and we were on the move by 10.  We had an 11 AM appointment to view the famous da Vinci painting, The Last Supper.  The painting is housed inside of the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie which was about a mile walk from our hotel.  We could have taken public transportation or a cab but the cab would have probably cost us $10 or so and the public transportation would have taken more time than walking because we would have had to take a bus to a train and still walk a few blocks.  Because of this we decided to walk.  We arrived with time to spare before our 11:00 tour started and we kind of mingled around the public square outside of the church and convent waiting for our tour to begin.  They do not allow anyone to visit the painting whenever you like.  You need to book a spot on a tour and the tours sometimes sell out months before.  Luckily, being winter and the off-season we were able to get a spot on a tour only a few weeks before our trip.  Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed inside of the church where the painting is housed.  They take you through the church and allow you to view the painting for about ten minutes before continuing the tour of the church and grounds.  Before entering the room where the painting is held they put you through a series of rooms where the doors close behind you before the doors in front of you open, allowing the air to remain a stable temperature where the painting is held.  The tour guide (ours was in English) gives you the history of the painting and they go into a great amount of detail about what is being portrayed in the painting.  After the tour we went inside of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church (Church of the Holy Mary of Grace).  Like most churches we have visited over the last few years on our trips, this old church (built in 1497) was quite impressive.  While it initially didn’t seem overly impressive from outside the inside was quite spectacular.  After closer inspection of the outside however, we did find that there was quite a bit of detail designed into the building.  What we did find kind of odd was on the outside of this centuries old building (and on other historically significant buildings throughout the city) were huge modern advertisements draped over the side of the building.  That did not impress us.  On our tour of the church we learned that many of the churches around the city actually close and lock their doors during lunch because they were finding that during lunch hours art work was being stolen while no one was around.  Because of this we only had 10-15 minutes to do our self-guided tour of the church.

Plaza where we waited for our tour

Entrance to the Last Supper with ugly advertisements

Santa Maria delle Grazie Church

Some of the detail outside the church

Courtyard inside the church grounds

Our "Holding area"

After seeing the Last Supper and church we walked a few blocks to the train station that we had arrived at the day before so we could catch our tour bus.  We booked a 2 day pass on one of the hop on/hop off busses that circle the city per the recommendation of someone at work.  We figured this would be a good way to get an overview of the city and if we saw something we liked we could get off and get on a later bus to continue the tour.  We had no idea where exactly the bus stopped so we asked a police officer who seemed to have no idea whatsoever what we were talking about.  Even when we showed her the brochure she still did not know.  Just as we started walking away we spotted our bus, LEAVING our stop.  At least now we knew what to look for and we also knew that 5 minutes later that same bus would be only a two blocks away, so we headed for that bus stop to get on.  

The bus stop sign we had to look for

The bus arrived right on time, about 3 or 4 minutes after we got there and we took our seats on the upper deck, where it turned out to be pretty cold!  The tour bus was bright, big and it really stood out, especially in the narrow, European style streets.  Many people on the streets looked up at the bus as we drove by with looks on their faces as if they had never seen the bus before.  Being from NY we thought this was crazy because every time we go into the city we see nothing but tour busses!  We rode around for about 45 minutes and got off near the center of the city close to the Duomo of Milan and the Teatro alla Scala.  We were now getting hungry so we found a nice little café with outdoor seating (heated) where we enjoyed a great lunch of pizza and pasta followed by a panna gelato.

Our tour bus

We did have the top deck to ourselves for a bit

From the front of the tour bus driving down the streets of Milan

Panna - Thanks Angela!

After lunch we headed to Teatro alla Scala, which is a world renowned opera house in Milan.  While like the Last Supper, pictures were not allowed inside we were able to watch a brief portion of a practice session from one of the upper interior boxes.  While we are not opera fans we decided that we would have to try and make an effort to return to Milan when we are in Italy in August to see a show there.  It was that impressive.

Teatro alla Scala

Statue of Leonardo across from la Scala

After the Teatro alla Scala we started walking towards the Duomo.  We first passed through Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is an impressive shopping area covered by a high, arched glass ceiling.  While we could not afford to shop in any of the stores (Prada, Gucci, etc) we were once again impressed by the architecture.  

Entrance to A Vittorio Emanuele II

Our next stop was the Duomo di Milano (Cathedral of Milan).  This was by far the most impressive church or cathedral we have ever seen.  The cathedral, we learned, is the fifth largest in the world, and took nearly 600 years to build!  While on Saturday we really only toured the inside, when we returned on Sunday we really stopped to get a closer look and appreciate the detail that made up the building.

Inside the Duomo

By the time we got out of the Duomo it had started to rain so we decided to head back to the hotel for a little while.  Before we got on the train we passed a McDonald’s restaurant which had something unusual on the menu that we had never seen before:  the Tastes of America burgers.  We did not get one but thought that was different.  We arrived back at the hotel, rested up for a little while and decided to take a walk outside for a bit.  We borrowed some umbrellas from the concierge and walked around a bit.  We had planned on maybe revisiting one of the areas the tour bus had passed by earlier in the day where we saw quite a few bars and cafes but after taking the subway there, because of the rain, most places had lines to get in.  So we hopped on one of the trolleys that go around the city and headed back towards our hotel.  A few blocks away we spotted a small café where we went inside and had an enjoyable meal with several strong drinks.

The Lover Cafe where we had dinner

New Jersey to Milan

Every so often you hear about “mistake” airfares, where the airline mistakenly advertises something really cheap that is simply not believable.   You never really hear of anyone snagging one of those fares, until now.  Every so often there are posts on message boards dedicated to mistake fares but we never seem to grab them before the airline realizes the mistake and pulls them back.  Several months back Chris noticed a Norwegian airline advertising extremely cheap airfares from US cities to most major cities in Europe.  The fares were being ticketed to US based airlines and to be honest it seemed too good to be true.  The only problem was that these fares were not available on just any flight; you had to painstakingly search to find the ones that worked.  Chris noticed on the message boards that someone grabbed tickets for several days in February from Newark to Milan.  Rather than search through lots of different dates looking for something that worked, Chris decided to book the same dates.  We ended up grabbing a flight from Newark that left for Milan, Italy on a Thursday night and returned on Monday morning for only $135 each!  We booked the flight and eagerly awaited the flight to be ticketed.  When it did about a day later we selected our seats, checked our credit card statement to see that it posted and started planning our trip.

Driving from our house in MA to NY to catch a flight out of Newark was not really an issue for the price we paid.  We were lucky enough to get a ride to the airport from Chris’s dad and we arrived about 2 hours before our scheduled flight.  Since our flight would be on United we did not have status and we would have to check in with everyone else, go through the security lines with everyone else, and board with everyone else.  There would be no skipping of the lines this time.  Since we had no checked bags for this short trip, only carry-ons, we were able to check in via a kiosk in the airport.  The line for security was not bad; we were through security in under 10 minutes.  Since we had so much time to kill we figured we might as well head for the American Airlines Admirals Club, where we would at least be able to sit in comfort and have free drinks while we waited.  Unfortunately the Admirals Club was in a different terminal.  Luckily, there was a shuttle bus run by United on the inside of security that took you between terminals.  We boarded the bus and made the 10 minute drive to the terminal where the club was located.  When we got there we found out that club was in another part of the terminal which would require us to leave the secure area and re-enter the secure area run by American.  Since we did not have a ticket for American we did not think security would let us through so we again boarded the bus back to our departure terminal.  We ended up killing close to 30 minutes in this whole process so by the time we reached our gate we only had 15-20 minutes to wait until they boarded.  The boarding process on United was much more efficient and organized than American which we usually fly.  Rather than everyone standing around the gate waiting for their group to be called they have separate lines for each group.  We think Southwest does it this way too. They then board one line at a time and the whole process seemed much more efficient.  We purposely grabbed a seat near the back of the plane hoping that if the plane were not full that the back would be the least crowded.  The plane was not completely full but we did not have enough room to spread out like we might have liked.  We had no problem getting overhead space which is really all we wanted.  Each seat had a personal television loaded with lots of TV shows and movies.  That plus the fact that the scheduled 8 hour 15 minute flight took less than 7 hours made it seem to go by pretty quick.  We even got a nice view of the sunrise above the clouds as we were getting closer to our destination.

We landed a little after 8 AM and based on our spot in the back of the plane we were the last ones off before the flight crew.  We quickly made it through customs and immigration and found our way to the train station which would take us into Milan, about 35 minutes away.  We arrived at the station about 2 minutes before the next train was to leave so rather than rush we took our time navigating our way through the screens on the ticket machine.  We got the tickets we needed then tried to figure out how to validate our ticket before boarding the train.  Before leaving we learned that the tickets need to be validated via a machine before boarding the train.  Conductors do not always come around checking tickets but when they do you better have a validated ticket or risk a fine.  We figured out the validation process and boarded our train which was already sitting in the station.  The train ended up leaving about 15 minutes after we boarded and the ride into the city took another 35 minutes.  

We then found the taxi stand and took a cab to our hotel, where arrived just after 10 AM.  Luckily they let us check in early.  Given that we had platinum status with the hotel chain (Marriott), they upgraded us to a junior suite which was quite large and even had a balcony!  They also gave us access to their lounge where they were still serving breakfast.  So after leaving our bags in our spacious room we grabbed a quick bite to eat.  We returned to our rooms, took showers, took some pictures of the room, and proceeded to nap for about 3 ½ hours.  

The view from our room's balcony

Our room's balcony

Very useful power pack we got from our Uncle Tim and Tony for Christmas

Thanks Jose and Alex and Mina and Justin for the converters!

View from the room at night with supermarket across the street

After waking up we lounged around for a little while before venturing out.  We were getting hungry so we decided to just walk and stop to eat whatever looked good.  After walking a few blocks from the hotel in the rain (the hotel lent us umbrellas) we found a small bakery/pizzeria where we grabbed a slice of pizza to eat.  We walked back towards the hotel but before we got there we stopped in to check out a supermarket which was conveniently directly across from the hotel.  We always enjoy checking out supermarkets when we are away from home as sometimes you run into some unusual stuff.  The only thing unusual that we noticed was that they provided gloves to put on while handling produce.  Everyone was using them and we thought that was a good idea.  We ended up buying some snacks before heading back to our room.  We also stopped off at the lounge once again to stock up on water and juice for our room.

Our pizzeria/bakery

Our hotel