Med Cruise - 0406 - Day 1

Friday – 31^st March 2006- Milan

Left for Milan Orio early in the morning by Transavia. Not bad at all for a “low cost” air carrier. Reached Milan Orio, which is way out of town and took a bus into town. We stayed at a hotel in the heart of Milan, called Hotel London. I’d definitely recommend it to those people planning to travel to Milan, as its location is really hard to beat. We met up with Poo’s parents and walked around, looking at the fortress and the cathedral (Duomo in Italian). The Duomo was impressive as it was one of the few catherdrals that I have seen with wonderful tapestry hanging in it. However, it was pretty much like every other duomo that I have seen in the past (the one in Firenze/Florence being more impressive though). However that galleria (mall) across the duomo was impressive. It looked like the passage in Den Haag, only 5 times bigger. It had all the big designer boutiques there. At one corner of it, you saw “PRADA”, etc, but in the 4^th corner, written in the same manner on black stone was “MC DONALDS, sigh the golden arches seem to be omnipresent. Resistance is futile, I just need to accept that happy meals are here to stay.

We also went to buy tickets for the opera at the theatre (La Scala), but they were completely sold out. We also wanted to go and see the painting of the last supper (made famous from the novel – The DaVinci Code – Dan Brown) in the church of Mary Grazie, but that was sold out for the next 5 weeks. They allow only limited number of visitors inside, and hence I would recommend that you book well in advance.

After lunch and a short siesta (and two gelatos later), we went shopping in the “chique” designer label district of Milan (know as the golden quadrangle), hmmm, way to expense. We walked though shops like Armani (actually 4 of them), Versace, D&G, name em, and we went to them. What did we buy, nothing! It seemed like nothing was less than 500 euros. Hugely deflating to my ego, but I could not buy shoes for 1000 euros and then allow them to touch the ground.