Italy

The train took us through the Alps and into the station in Milano. There was a dog some on brought on the train and the dog just laid in the middle of the walk-way and just let people walk around him. He wouldn’t move at all.

We arrived at the station late in the day and from there had to catch an underground and then walk to our hotel. We kept going in circles trying to find our hotel. After a while we had to break down and get a cab and have them take us to our hotel. I don’t know if we would have found it on our own. After checking in we left to go get dinner.

We walked towards the center of town; along the way we saw a driving school that was teaching people how to ride scooters. They did have training wheels on them. We had to take a photo of that. We found some great shops and went to a cafe for dinner. They did not bring out menus and the owner just named off different dishes and we just picked one. They all sounded great, what I got was pasta with ham, egg and some tomatoes and basil. It was great, after dinner we found a place the sold gelato.

We made our way back to the hotel. The next morning there was a breakfast buffet at the hotel. I ended up eating a lot of yogurt when I am in Europe and the coffee is nice and strong. We had made reservations for this place but not ever hotel on our trip was planned out. There is always ‘last minute bookings’ they are at the train station. When you get a room you can ask for the amenities you want, such as air-conditioning and a bathroom in the room. Not down the hall. Most places have some sort of breakfast included in the stay. It makes it nice to just go down stairs and not have to find a place to eat right away.

The day was filled with shopping; there was a sale at the department store. It was great to see men shopping for new shirts and things on their lunch hour. We found a Prada store and other shops. A lot of great shoes and since it was a sale month, so much the better.

The city was not what I expected. Having heard so much about it in fashion magazines, it was a little dirty and grey looking. The fashion was great and the women did dress well. I just expected it to be a bit cleaner I guess. It was amazing to see women dressed to the nines get on to a scooter in high heels and take-off down the street. I wouldn’t do that, too afraid of ruining the shoes.

We only had one day there and it was off to Florence. The train station was filled with pigeons and not that clean. I took a photo to show how bad it looked. In the photo the station looked great and it looks so much better than in real life. Isn’t that just the way?