Milan

It must be a northern Italy thing, because everywhere south of Milan and Venice has no fog. The fog was so thick in the morning it might as well have been England (we’ve heard rumors, will confirm later). The fog also seems to hang around until noon when the sun finally has enough strength to banish it. We are staying at a campsite for the next few days that sits just outside of Milan. Campeggio Citta Di Milano is located next to the Aquatica (aquatic park) and has bus service into Milan and then a short subway ride right to the centre. Julie and I spent the day getting ourselves showered and our clothing washed. Now when Julie saw the showers she had to laugh and ask me if I could use them. This is because the shower heads, I guess, were installed to the height of an average Italian (5’4” off the ground). I did manage to use the shower without much difficulty but it did get the floor covered with water because of the angle I had to put the shower head at for me to use it. This campsite took us for a surprise. On the left side of the road on the way in was what looked like a petting zoo. Goats, sheep, chickens, roosters, quail, turkey, geese, rabbits and some small birds were the animals we saw. With the exception of the rabbits and the small birds all the animals were let loose to graze in the campground. I made sure the clothes line was tied up extra high and never fully trusted the goats with our meager clothing. That night we tried to phone Phil to find out where and when to meet up but we had no luck. So we decided we would get up early and head into town and try him on his cell again, and at the hostel too.

The morning of February the 28th was cold and foggy. The hand drawn map to the bus stop provided by the campsite office was not very accurate and we managed to wander for about 10 minutes before we actually found the place to buy tickets and the bus stop itself. The entire ride into town took more than 30 minutes and when we were on the bus the police came on to check tickets (first time for us). We arrived at the Piazza del Duomo and hoped we would just run into Phil and his friends, Alex and Mike. After a few minutes we decided we would head to the tourist office and get a map and maybe see if they could try calling the hostel for us. Up to this point, we haven’t made a successful call which we now know it was purely our fault. The tourist office had trouble speaking to the hostel receptionist as the lady spoke barely any Italian and about the same amount of English (Julie figured she was Asian from her accent). We learnt that the guys had left the hostel already. Julie and I went back outside to the Duomo steps and sat and waited hoping that they were heading to where we were. We still could not reach Phil on his cell phone. Sitting on the steps was probably not a good idea since there was a group of guys running around trying to sell their string bracelets. When your standing, it’s much easier to avoid them, but we were sitting and one of the guys approached us. We spoke for a few minutes then he offered us the bracelets. The guy was nice and not forceful so we accepted them; he claimed they were for “good luck” (we gave him 1 euro). We were very down by this point and didn’t know what to do. We were about to give up on meeting up with Phil completely when Julie suggested we ask the tourist office how to dial Phil’s cell phone, maybe we had been doing something wrong. Turns out we had been and we quickly got Phil on the line and arranged to meet up on the stairs outside the duomo. Julie and I only needed to wait about 20 minutes before Phil showed up with Mike and Alex in toe. After some quick introductions and some talk we made our way inside the duomo to take some pictures and have a look around. Besides the church there is really only one other site worth seeing in Milan, and that it is Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. We couldn’t see the later as you need to book tickets three days in advance. We wandered the city for awhile before stopping in a coffee shop for a drink. The coffee was rather good and since it was off the beaten track, it was cheap too. We decided to go to a patio for dinner as it was a gorgeous day. We chose a restaurant near the duomo and each had a pizza and some wine. We walked around some more, ventured into a Ferrari shop and eventually made our way to a bar for some much needed beer. We tried a few places before finding one with food and bathrooms. In some Italian cities from 6 to 9 when you order a drink you get free food, think of Spain and tapas. The first place we settled on was probably the ritziest place we have all been to. Chandeliers on the ceiling, rich looking curtains, waiters in tuxes and the food was on silver serving trays. It was a nice place but we had to stand as it costs more to sit. After one beer we decided to move onto another location, to our dismay, the beer cost us 9 euros each. We made the decision to find a pub for some cheaper beer and ended up settling on a bar that also sold tobacco. This one also had a bathroom, but it was through two doors and a courtyard and it was also a continental. We sat out on the patio for a few rounds and were also served some food with each round. While we sat and talked a few peddlers came around trying to sell their wares, once again we had to repeat “No gratzie”. It was getting cold so we thought about moving on when we learned that it cost more to sit outside than in, so we went inside for 1 more round before calling it a night. Julie needed to go to the bathroom on the way home and asked if we could swing by McDonalds for a pee break. We all had a great laugh at Alex’s expense as he walked right into the glass window of McDonalds thinking it was a sliding door. We made our way back to the subway station and parted ways. It was really great meeting up with Phil and his friends, and who would have thought that it would be in Milan that we would get that chance.