Full day in Milan

Welcome Gentle Reader, 

The Galleria Vik Milano is our hotel here in Milan.  It is housed within one of Italy’s most iconic landmarks - Galleria Vitoria Emanuele II.  It was built between 1865 and 1877.  The Galleria Vittorio is known as Milan’s Living Room and houses top tier shopping and restaurants.   As an aside, the original Prada store is housed here.   And YES we watched The Devil Wears Prada this evening  :)

Now for some interesting trivia - since the hotel is part of this amazing building, getting to our room is interesting.  Here are the directions:

• Make a U turn off the elevators
• Take 5 steps then turn Left
• Take 16 steps then turn Left
• Take 5 steps then turn Right
• Enter the “black light” hallway
• Take 32 steps 
• Go down 2 stair steps
• Take 8 steps
• Go up 2 stair steps then turn Left
• Take 22 steps then turn Right
• Take 7 steps then turn Left
• Take 40 steps 
• Go down 3 stairs steps then turn Left
• Take 10 steps then turn Right
• Take 14 steps then turn Right
• Take 5 steps then turn Left
• Take 4 steps
• FINALLY you are at our hotel room

Now on to our day about town - 

We started bright and a bit too early with seeing Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper.  Left the hotel at 7:45 

The process to see this painting is quite strict.  You are only allowed to be in the room for 15 minutes.  But, before that you have to wait outside for the EXACT minute to go into a vestibule type room.  Here our guide shared a lot of information - Such as, the building was bombed during WWII and just a small part of the painting was untouched - the building was just rubble around it.  They did find pieces and put it all back together - however, with various ‘restorations’ over the centuries, only 20% of the paint is from DaVinci. 

While our guide was imparting her wisdom, there were 3 people toward the back talking to each other quite loudly.  Several of our group kept looking over to them but they continued.  So what does Missy finally do?  She Shushes them!  The group was happy that she did. So while in the vestibule you wait for the EXACT minute to go into the refectory (dining hall). When the doors magically opened our tour guide went and told off those 3 folks (who were not with our tour). 

 It is an amazing painting even with it being ‘restored’ and the method used by DaVinci held up poorly. The door in the fresco was created by the monks for better access to the kitchen, then Napoleon came along and made it even larger.  Here are some pictures

From here, we took a short pause and hit up the local cafe for beverages - Missy a Coke and Shan a cappuccino.

From here went went to the Sforza Castle, which is a 15th century fortress turned Renaissance court.  There were tons of school tour groups and people just hanging out inside and out.  

Then it was on to the Persol Sunglass store.  Missy has had her pair for about 10 years and the lenses are scratched up.  So she had the grand plan to go to the Milan store and see if they would replace the lenses for her.  You know what?     

No?  What?

They replaced them for her!  There was a charge, but hey she has new lenses and the sunglasses can go on for another 10 years!  :)

We continued meandering around and ended up at a Le Creuset store, where Shannon fell madly in love with some plates, bowls etc.  They were in a color that she loved - Riveria    It also happens that this is a brand new color.  She passed on spending the big bucks and may just order them online later. 

During this time we did stop for lunch.  Where we COULD NOT SHARE A PIZZA!  Each person had to order their own entree.  Our poor waiter had a hard time explaining it and we had a hard time understanding what he was trying to say.  So we ended up with large pizza’s, with some sort of dried ham on top - who knew!  It was an ok pizza, but nothing to write home about.  

Talking about something to write home about was our dinner last night - We went to Biffi’s - which has been in the Galleria since it opened in the 1800’s.  The food was amazing - we were sad we could finish our meals as we were stuffed. 

The “Are you twins” count so far is 2.

Stay tuned for a more relaxing day tomorrow as our feet are killing us!