Milano- No Cookies, Just Pizza

Duomo

Friday September 14th- Tuesday September 18th, 2012

After our on a whim decision to stay in Venice for a day, we headed to our next destination: Milan. We didn't know much about Milan other than it is one of the fashion capitals. We were pleased to encounter a lot of beautiful architecture, good people (thank you couch surfing hang outs) and of course, PIZZA. I am sure that we had nothing but pizza for most of our stay in Italy (maybe some bread, cheese, fruit and wine). We did try to make it to a variety of pizza places- including some top notch. We missed one in the afternoon after they had already started cooling down the oven and I'll admit I cried. A lot. (I was pretty hungry). But were able to try pizza at one place called Pizza OK (think Los Angeles hip food place with exotic yet simple menu complete with techno music hits) and one of the guys working there was kind enough to give Alex a button from the place.

Our stay in Milan was a bit strange as we weren't able to connect with anyone to stay with, so spent most of our time in cheap hotels deemed "hostels" with just the same limited amount of thrills. Though we were definitely overcharged, it was nice to have a space of our own and to move at our own pace (and to recover a bit from all the train hopping).

CS picnic

shopping cooridors

The weather was fantastic, allowing for all sorts of biking around the confusing streets (lots of inner and outer rings) and a picnic on Sunday with lot of people from Couch Surfing. We were lucky enough to be in Milan for the 6 year anniversary of CS there, so we joined in on the celebration. There were both travelers and locals, tons of food, beer, wine, games and high fives. We even hit up some sort of delicious buffet which was free with the purchase of a drink.

fountain outside of train station

We had planned to leave Milan on Monday morning (as in 5am-ish) so we crammed in a few sights Sunday evening, including the magnificent church, the Duomo. The architecture there is quite stunning, though at times the storefronts within the old facades are a bit distracting. Even the train station was outstanding to encounter. With our Sunday having been jam packed and our train time looming in the early hours, we decided to stay an extra day, eat some extra pizza and see some extra(ordinary) sights. There were some old palace grounds that had been converted into a park (as these old cities seem to do)  which made for lovely last day in Italy.

Alex got me this old castle. He's da best!