Day 17 - Milan - NYC - SLC

            We had an early start and left the hotel while it was still dark to walk to a nearby train station where we caught an express train to the Milan airport.  Unlike our journey to Italy, we had all ended up on the same flight home to SLC.  Thankfully the travel was uneventful and we arrived home to excited children and grandparents who were grateful that we were home safe.  It was an amazing vacation accompanied by great friends and filled with memories that will last a lifetime.

Day 16 - Milan

            It was an overcast, drizzly day in Milan today, but that was OK.  The weather we have had throughout our trip has been amazing and better than we expected.  We figured we would have had several rainy days, and really we had just a few drizzles that were no big deal

            We had early reservations at the Last Super and like many days were up at the crack of dawn.  The experience at the Last Super was a lot like seeing the David in Florence, Wow!  Only small groups are allowed inside at a time.  There were probably 15 people in our group.  After passing through a set of double doors that controls the humidity, we started our 30 minutes audio guide.  We were only given 30 minutes to enjoy the painting and we needed every second.  Lucky for us the painting had just been renovated so the colors were really nice.  It was amazing that at some point, someone had built a door right through the middle of the room and so the bottom portion of Savior is missing from where this door stood.  It was moving to stare at the art and ponder the subject of his work.  These Renaissance Artists were truly inspired.

            After making a quick trip inside the adjacent church we went to the Leonardo Da Vinci’s National Science Museum.  It was fun. We arrived early along with a couple dads and their children.  It was huge.  We mainly concentrated on the sketches of Leonardo (copies) that had been turned into machines by modern man.  We wandered through a few other exhibits and could have spent more time there, but are museum energy was waning.   After the science museum we headed to the Pinacoteca Art Museum.  The highlight of this museum was the sketches (cartoons) of Raphael’s School of Athens, which was especially meaningful after having seen the original in the Vatican Museum.  The other highlight was the original drawings and sketches from Leonard Da Vinci’s journals.  His mind must have never turned off.  He must have asked himself the most amazing questions and then never dismissed them as stupid or impossible.  We lost a few during the final museum visit.  It has been a long two weeks of art and culture.

            For lunch we enjoyed getting another prosciutto sandwich at a fancy grocery store where each food product had it’s own server. The food was then put on an in-store card, which then we paid for, and then had to walk back to all the independent areas and pick up our food.  Leave it to the Italians to add 3 extra steps to what could be a very simple process.

The spires of the Duomo

            After lunch we took a quick walk through the Duomo, but the highlight was climbing to the roof.  Unlike other roof walks we’ve done, once we reached the top of the church we were free to wander around and explore.  People were on the top of the church relaxing and enjoy the sun that had peaked out, chatting, eating, and looking over the city.  Although a nice city, not nearly as interesting to look out upon when compared to Florence.

            After the Duomo we split up and did some exploring on our own.  A few went shopping, some went back to the hotel to rest, and we went to the edge of the city wall to look at the fort.  We had a nice time wandering around, but didn’t know too much of what we were seeing.  After the Fort and a gelato we took a stroll down a really couple high end fashion streets and looked at the fancy shops, before ending up back at the Galleria and an adjacent 10 story department store.  We road up all 10 levels just to count how many levels there were.  What was amazing is that we saw people shopping in this nice department store with their dogs on a leash.  Nordstrom would never put up with such a thing.  We ended our day before meeting our group for dinner, just sitting in the piazza outside the Duomo watching and talking.  Milan is a melting pot and there with people from every corner of the world.

            Our “last supper” was fantastic.  John had secured a reservation at a quiet, family run hotel not far from the Duomo.  It was good, calm, relaxing and so good to be with good friends.  Despite all the beautiful scenery, architecture and art we saw, our 2 hours dinners every evening will be a highlight and a treasured memory.

Day 15 - Varenna - Milan

             We had the most amazing breakfast at the hotel.  It was the best “breakfast included” at any place we stayed.   We were a little bit out of our element as all the other hotel guests were dressed in suits and ties and we were in our travel clothes.

Our clothing matches perfectly with that of the housing behind us.

            After wandering a bit this morning, we meet Luca for our Water Taxi tour.  Luca was all business.  Although young and handsome, he was serious and not much of a joker (nothing like Bernardo).  He had a script and an agenda and he stuck to it.   I suppose a good comparison of Southern and Northern Italian personalities.  His boat was nice and I’m sure he had taken many fancy tourists out on a ride.  One of the best pictures of our trip was of our group that he took looking back on the beautiful, colorful buildings that lined the water’s front in Varenna.  We headed south on the Lake enjoying his dialogue of the lake and the extravagant properties that lined its edge.  The highlight of the boat ride was when we stopped and took a tour of the Villa Balbianello.  It was an amazing place.  Two familiar movies, Casino Royal and Star Wars II had memorable scenes from its gardens over looking the lake.  We enjoyed this relaxing way of seeing Lake Como and enjoyed its grandeur.

Standing where Anakin kisses a queen Amidala from Star Wars II

amazing mansions along the water's edge

            For lunch we went to a place Luca recommend – the same place where he has dining the night before when Lara had called.  Rather than relaxing after lunch we decided to make our way back to Milan.

Just making sure we get the right kind of luck, spinning on the testicles of the bull.

            Since John had been to Milan several times we put him in charge of our dining experiences.  After getting settled in our hotel, grabbling a gelato, wandering around by the Duomo and window shopping once again at fancy shops at the Galleria, we headed off on our trek to dinner.  And it was quite the trek.  We ended up in a trendy dinner area alongside a canal.  There were several restaurants to choose from.  Ours was good, not great, but we had a nice big table around which we could all enjoy each others company.

            This was the first hotel we had where our bathroom was not in our room.  We had a shower, but no toilet.  Our toilet was just outside our room, lucky for us.  But it still required walking into the hallway in the middle of the night if one needed to.