Our next stop after Venice: Milan! We had expectations of Milan being this high-end fashionistic, glitzy, overly glamourous, busy city. Although it was quite clear that Milan was a fashion-oriented city it didn't quite live up to our expectations. Out of all the cities we visited in Italy, Milan had the least personality--it was like an Italian version of Toronto...but still better than Toronto! And it didn't hurt that we noticed quite a few beautiful guys who were clearly models!
First thing we see when we step off the train.
Random street view! At the end of this street is the Castello Sforzesco.
Here is Milan's Duomo. Impressive, no? Even though Milan was bland for us, this cathedral was definitely the most beautiful thing in Milan and is quite amazing regardless of its location.
Inside the Duomo...
Another shot of in interior of the cathedral.
A view of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II from the Piazza del Duomo. The Galleria is apparently one of the world's first shopping malls!
Here is one quarter of the mall. It's actually two giant halls that make a cross, all of it covered by a glass domed roof. There were quite a few high-end shops in this Galleria, including Luis Vuitton, Prada (both of which can be seen in the photo above) and Mercedes Benz. It also contains, however, a McDonald's. So after you buy your $300,000 car and your $4000 t-shirt, you can eat a $4 Happy Meal!
The first day we were in the piazza there was a ceremony taking place. We think it was a graduation ceremony for their national police force. Cool costumes abound!
Another view of the Piazza del Duomo: cool buildings with some statue of a dude on a horse (actually we're pretty sure it's a statue of Vittorio Emanuele II).
The famous opera house Teatro alla Scala. Situated just outside of the Piazza della Duomo, this building is nice enough but nothing special on the outside. However...
...the inside is very grand and opulent. It makes you feel like you're stepping back into some period film as part of the Bourgeoisie! There was actually a rehearsal going on in the theatre space so we could only view the theatre space through a glass window on one of the little balconies. It was very dark due to the rehearsal so unfortunately our illegally-taken photos didn't turn out. If you like nice theatre buildings maybe you can find images of the theatre space on the Net, because it was extremely beautiful.
A Ferrari cellphone. Why not?
We saw these phones in a store at the start of the high-end shopping street, Monte Napoleone. There were many ridiculously expensive (and expensive-looking) cellphones on display. We would have liked to have gone in to browse, but the entry policy was "ring the bell and we'll come unlock the door for you" so we decided to take photos and keep walking!
We had this pizza from a restaurant on Via Dante, one of the main streets in Milan. It was one of those days where we were really tired and hungry and the only food we could find that we could afford looked like gross Italian food. We really weren't in the mood to deal with another bad Italian meal! We ended up ordering another pizza--not necessarily what we wanted. However, we were pleasantly surprised: for €9 we got this huge mozzarella, gorgonzola, and walnut pizza that tasted pretty freakin' amazing! Deeelicious!
Fashion break! In Italy we really liked how a lot of the men wore very bright colours (in particular there was a lot of purple). We were in Benetton in the Piazza del Duomo shopping for something bright and came across some fun-coloured pants. Cliff was already wearing his own bright green shirt, and when we found these green pants it was a must-do photo-op! Bonus: check out his green flip-flops! This is what Cliff looks like as lima bean!
Mmm...fresh fruits?! We don't think so! They're actually marzipan!
Yum yum yum!
How about some seafood?!
And of course, since we're in Italy...sausages! Also, check out the little sandwiches behind the links. These all looked so real that we were fooled at first glance! We thought it was very cool how someone could make marzipan look like this!
We reeeeeally had to go pee when we arrived at the Castello Sforzesco. Good thing there was a fountain at the entrance!
The entrance to the castle (we think Rapunzel lives here!).
Inside the castle's courtyard.
Inside the castle they had some people in costume. We thought this guy on the horse looked pretty cool! We also have to admit we may have been staring a bit longer than necessary...
Here you can see that Stefan entered a watermelon-eating contest! Actually, his hands are holding the watermelon. At the back of the castle there was a fruit stand. Seeing as how it was super hot, and we hadn't had watermelon in a long time (it's not exactly the kind of fruit you can have when backpacking), we bought a big slice and chowed down!
A view from the park, Parco Sempione, behind the castle.
At the other end of the park is this arch, Arco della Pace.
Foccacia! In Italy you could find these pizzas with a foccacia crust. Cliff had this one with proscuitto, mushroom, and cheese, and it was super tasty!
Random piazza in Milan which had two cool sculptures! They looked like those bendy pencils, or some sort of gummy candy!
Cool archway over a road. We took a photo of it because we liked the juxtaposition of the old and new structures.
Random residential roundabout in the city centre. We like how these very cute houses are the norm there for generic housing!
Something that was awesome about Milan: Happy Hour! Not like happy hour as we know it in Canada: in Milan you buy an alcoholic drink for anywhere from €6-10 and you get to stuff your face with an all-you-can-eat buffet! Amazing!
The picture above is the restaurant where we ate. We were sitting under the umbrellas outside the restaurant. The walkway in the middle is for pedestrians, and on the other side of the row of diners is a canal.
Check out the wicked spread! We "splurged" and spent €9 so it came with a pretty varied buffet. At some other places you could pay only €5 but the spread was small and only had things like fries, little sandwiches or pizzas, olives, etc. Usually the more you paid the bigger the spread (and sometimes there would be hot food). This was actually a Mexican restaurant so the food we had was a bit of a mish-mash of Italian and Mexican food. There were lots of different pastas, deep-fried eggplant, mussels, sausages, potatoes, cold cuts, artichoke hearts, pizzas, and lots of other yummy foods!
Here is a picture of our little plates (guess the restaurant didn't want people eating too much?!)...but we think we may have refilled them almost 10 times each! Also in the photo are our boozey drinks.
Here is a photo of a similar canal very close to the one by which we ate. You can see some restaurants on the other side of the water.
We had a dinner with our Couchsurfing host Davide at a restaurant he recommended. It was actually run by Chinese people but the fare was all-Italian.
Here is Stefan's meal: A tagliatelli with asparagus, roasted red pepper, shrimps, and fresh basil done in a light olive oil-based sauce.
And Cliff's meal: a plate of vomit from someone who licked the inside of a tar machine! Actually, it's a risotto al nero: risotto done in ink from a cuttlefish! It also had pieces of squid in it. Very cool, but more importantly, very VERY yummy! Cliff never would have ordered it had our host never told us about it (it's apparently a specialty in Venice).
For those of you who were totally grossed out by the picture of the risotta, here is something to cleanse your palate: a gelato from GROM, a well-respected high-end gelateria in Italy. They have some unusual flavours here too (like San Crispino in Rome). What we had: Cassata Siciliana, with sheep's ricotta, almond slivers, and pieces of candied citrus peel. Needless to say it was delicious! Wait... f**king delicious!!!
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