Spring Break: Milan

It's been a while since I posted so I'm going to try to update as well as I can about the past few months. Here's my continuation of spring break!

Day 9 28/3/10
We woke up in Nice to our first of many surprises to occur throughout the day: daylight's savings happened while we were asleep and we were an hour late to check out of our hostel. Luckily, it wasn't a big deal and we were even able to leave our backpacks in a closet at the hostel so we could enjoy our last day in Nice. Unfortunately, we once again forgot that grocery stores are closed on Sundays and had to scrounge around at a few open markets for food. Eventually we made it to the beach with picnic in hand and enjoyed our last lunch in France. We walked to the old part of town for gelato at the best gelato place in Nice (I got fig gelato!), went back to the hostel to collect our things, said our goodbyes to all our new friends at la Belle Menuieure and hopped on a train to Ventimiglia, Italy, a seaside village on the border or France and Italy. We had a two hour wait in Ventimiglia before catching another train to Milan so we went down to the beach to chill and stretch our legs. As we turned a corner we saw beautiful snowcapped mountains!

Gwen and I in Ventimiglia
The next surprise came when we returned to the train station and ran into Nathan, a Georgian that we shared a hostel room with in Barcelona. Crazy how small the world can feel sometimes.

We got on the train to Milan with the largest pizza I have ever seen in tow and spent the train ride playing cards in our little train compartment. It felt like I was on the Hogwarts Express, especially when the food trolley came around.

We arrived in Milano Centrale which is a huge and gorgeous train station, found our hotel (a proper hotel with bathrooms and towels!), hung out for a bit and crashed after a long day of traveling.

Day 10 29/3/10
Spending the day in Milan left me with mixed feelings. We went to the Duomo, a huge cathedral and really the only thing to see in Milan besides expensive designer stores. The only reason we really stopped in Milan for the day and half we were there was because Riley and Gwen were flying back to England and Milan had the cheapest flights. But the cathedral was really pretty. We went to the top and could see the skyline of the city and the amazing detail of the building.



The inside of the building was also gorgeous. It was decorated with so much art and huge stained glass windows. I saw a reservation list for confession that spanned over the following weeks. I guess you have to bank on the fact that you'll have something to confess a few weeks in advance.






We spent the rest of the dreary day window shopping, went back to the hotel, packed Gwen up, walked her to the train station, got food in the grocery store INSIDE THE TRAIN STATION!!, said our tearful goodbyes sulked for the rest of the night.

I think the reason I didn't enjoy Milan as much as I could have was because I was still on a high from the amazingness of Southern France where it was sunny and beachy and warm whereas Milan was cold, rainy and didn't have much to offer. The metro system did remind me a lot of Boston's T which was nice.

Next stop: Florence!