In Milan it rained! It actually rained! Milan was cold, wet and cloudy when our train drew into the grand Central station. The sweet wet rain was a relief greater than eating a buttery steak and cheese pie the morning after a big night. It's been several long and hot weeks since we've seen and tasted real rain; since we've felt like we could possibly wear more than a t-shirt.
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| The rain is clearing! |
However, with nothing but t-shirts in our carry bags, we walked to our little Milan airbnb loft in the rain, blissfully enjoying the goosebumps trailing up our arms. With no worries we spent over four hours traversing the 5.4kilometers from Milano Central train station through the quiet neighbourhoods, with the trendy tree-lined streets mostly all to ourselves. We stopped occasionally; at a coffee shop and later grabbed a pizza for lunch. We walked past soggy cathedrals and through parks accumulating puddles on the footpaths, chatting randomly about what we saw and the feel of the rain. After we arrived, we prepared an early dinner of fresh creamy cheese gnocchi in our little ill-equipt kitchen, enjoyed some wine, a hot shower and then we were ready for bed. Our first day in Milan was relaxing and the down time gave us ample time to recharge our batteries again!
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| Corner of Via Grossi |
On Tuesday the sun was shining once more and we caught an old pre-war 1920's tram from our outer suburb into the city centre.
Milan transport is very similar to Melbourne with so many trams going every which way, lines like wrinkles on the road and a nest of wires above and the same nightmare of a ticketing system. The main attraction in Milan is the Gothic Duomo de Milano Cathedral, one of the busiest and grandest in the world and first on our list.
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| Grand Duomo di Milano Cathedral |
When we arrived the shear size was magnificent, the white marble Cathedral is gigantic and stands towering over the plaza but also the number of people roving and roaming about had us on guard. No thank you, for the twentieth time we do not want a 'selfie stick' or a good luck bracelet or a squishy ball or a glittery phone cover or anything else. Yip... still no on that 'selfie stick'.
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| Intricate details on the Duomo |
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| Inside the Galleria Vittorio |
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| Street corner by Via Dante |
Milan is a bustling, forward-thinking and stylish metropolitan, with an established history in theatre, music, literature, art and fashion. The city didn't really captivate us as much as the older orange terracotta roofed cities but we enjoyed walking around watching the men in suits drinking typical Italian shots of espresso at the bar and families strolling through the park. To us, we value the experience to see another side of Italy, although more modern and with more 'big city' feel it's still Italy! Life seems on full throttle and the city is a great big mixing pot of international flavours. We were actually very surprised with how many non-Italian nationals there are- perhaps the Italians are all off on their holidays?
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| Gate to the Castello Sforzesco |
Ancient Bergarmo was founded by a Celtic tribe and after it became a Roman municipality in AD49 the city grew quickly. What's intriguing about Bergamo is that it has two city centres: Citta Alto (upper city) and Citta Bassa (lower city), which reminded us of the Kingdom of Patones we visited in Spain.
The upper city is a hilltop medieval village surrounded by 16th century Venetian defence walls and this is where we were headed to. Not for the faint-hearted, walking uphill in the summer sun nearly melted us into pools of evaporating flesh, like typical tourists we ended up accidentally taking the long way around and once we reached the main plaza were dead-beat and starving.
John bought a large cream filled cannoli and then we checked out the little village. There weren't a lot of attractions but some interesting buildings so we walked around the streets, tripping and cursing the designers as most of the main roads here were made of large rounded stones which our ankles slid around on and our feet fell precariously over!
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| Take the photo- cause I'm eye'ing this up |
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| Palazzo della Ragione peaking out |
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| Via Rosate |
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| Piazza Vecchia |
The highest point of the upper city was San Vigilo an ancient medieval castle, now in ruins and part of a local park, with views down and across the plains. Here we could climb around the four towers and into the dungeons but by far, the best part were the views!
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| Check the size of these stones! |
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| View towards neighbouring Ramera |
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| View back towards Alta cita, Bergamo |
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| Taking a break on San Vigilo |
After this we treaded carefully down and stopped for a late lunch in Citta Alto for some typical regional food, John had cheese polenta with Italian beef and Kara the cheese polenta with wild boar. Both quite enjoyable, but better suited for winter time when its not over 35 degrees out.
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| Cheese and Italian beef Polenta |
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| Heading back downhill to the train station |
With full and heavy bellies we tramped the faster route back to Citta Bassa but not fast enough! The train left only minutes before we arrived so we were stranded for an hour waiting for the next one, occupying ourselves in McDonald's by comparing their menus to those at home.
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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