Milan Italy

From the train the Italian country side looked so… Italian! The houses, the streets, the quaint farms, the vineyards, the rocky hills and mountains. Always in the distance were the craggy peaks of mountains. Very nice.

Milan was a busy place, queues were long and the streets were pretty hectic. We stayed in the ‘Chinatown’ section which was close to the centre so we could catch trams and the metro to the places we were interested in.

Unfortunately we arrived on a Monday and most museums and galleries are closed on that day so we wandered about getting a bit frustrated when people waved their hands at us saying “Closed!” as we walked in the door. Disappointed by not being able to see a Michaelangelo exhibition we vowed to come back the next day, only to find the following day that the ‘exhibition’ contained only one heavily weathered statue! That made us chuckle. There were various other things on display though and we spent hours shuffling from one painting/sculpture/piece of antique furniture to another.

We did find some other great art exhibitions and really enjoyed them, and on the last night we went in search of some live jazz (quite fruitlessly I might add, everything was closed until September) but instead we found a nice canal area that fairly throbbed with night life. A little bit like Amsterdam, except for all the tobacco smoke.

The Duomo cathedral was an absolutely amazing structure that soared up into the sky with incredibly elaborate spires and massive columns. We took the lift up to the ‘Terrace’ which was up on the roof and gazed out through the sculptures at Milan spread out below.

There was a huge castle that had extensive gardens that we relaxed in too, filled with families, groups of young people, cuddling couples and a few other people of our vintage. A fashion shoot was taking place, with impossibly thin and leggy models being photographed wearing the latest gladrags and accessories. Georgie will be looking out in future editions of Vogue…