We woke up grudgingly at 3am Friday morning to catch a 6:25 flight out of Dublin. Arriving in Milan at about 10, we hopped on a bus that took us to Milano Centrale train station, right into the middle of the city. We were STARVING by this point, so we headed into a tiny pizzeria on the corner.
Do you see that slice of pizza!?? As big as my face! When we first arrived, there was a bit of a language barrier issue. But once we got our food, all was well. The pizza was the best I've ever eaten, and it was my favorite meal we had in Italy (which is saying a lot, because all of the food was amazing). We also got a quarter-litre of wine for 3.50 Euros each! Such a delicious value.
We then hopped on the metro to head to the Duomo. I liked the metro. It was like a New York City subway, but cleaner. Little was I expecting to come back above ground to this.
My friends, you are looking at the Piazza del Duomo, which basically just means Cathedral Square. It is the main square of Milan (I mean, how could it not be) with the Milan Cathedral as the focal point. It was free admission, plus it was raining, so we decided to pop inside. I had to pay to take pictures, but clearly it was totally worth it.
These are just my favorites of the many pictures I snapped. This Cathedral was absolutely breathtaking. It was so huge, and made me feel so small. It especially made me think about how it was all built by hand, without machinery. The manpower that went into building such a grand monument for worship… it's all very humbling. There were also several Holy Relics in the Cathedral, but the most beautiful was the one above, down in the Crypt. It is one of the first bishops of Milan, and for some reason it was very captivating. I could have stood looking at it all night.
After we were done at the Duomo, we walked around the city looking for Sforza Castle. It took us a while, but in the meantime we got to see a lot of the city, including an almost-indoor shopping strip with every Italian name brand you could think of.
The other girls in my group wanted to give up. I didn't blame them--it was raining, our feet were wet, it was chilly. But I refused to stop. After all, the longer we spent looking, the more of the city we got to see. Well, God must have pushed us in the right direction, because the next street we followed took us right to Sforza Castle.
I must admit, I didn't take the time to read or learn anything about the history of this castle. I just knew it was beautiful and I wanted all of the pictures. So we walked around inside, and enjoyed the aesthetics of the place.
We decided to head back to the train station a bit early to get some coffee and a snack before getting on the train to Florence. After the longest and only rainy day we had on our trip, it was nice to kick back and nap for three and a half hours, on our way to another beautiful city.
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