Milan & Florence
As I’m sure you could have guessed by the absence of a blog post, Dave and I have been keeping very busy in Italy. Tomorrow is our last day here. I can’t believe the trip is coming to an end already.
As you have seen from the photos, we had a lovely time in Milan. Milan itself is very similar to all big cities, although there is more shopping than you could imagine. We had a great time relaxing and looking in the shops, and Dave got lots of shoes! He beat me in shoe shopping, believe it or not!
The oddest thing we found about Milan was that the siesta is still taken full advantage of. The siesta is a European tradition of closing the shops in the middle of the afternoon to take a break. We didn’t feel this a lot in much of Italy, but it definitely affected our time in Milan. The most difficult part about it was finding a restaurant that was open in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes we would get caught up in whatever we were doing and not want to eat until 3 pm. Unfortunately for us, this was not a reality. All the restaurants closed between 2:30 – 7:30, and so we were left hungry until they opened again. It’s a very different mentality from the 24-hour restaurants we have in the U.S. And we found it very interesting that Milan is the only place we really felt this play significantly into our trip since it is considered the most worldly of all the Italian cities we visited.
While in Milan, we got the opportunity to take several day trips outside the city. The first was to the small town of Bergamo. It was a fun, small town to visit.
The more memorable of the two day trips was to Lake Como. Como is in the very northern part of Italy, and we accidentally missed the stop to Como and ended up in Switzerland. We didn’t stay there long. We walked around a bit, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and headed back down to Como.
Como and Bellagio, the two towns we visited on the lake, were very enjoyable to visit because they weren’t as overrun by tourists as the other places we visited. We ended up with a perfect day to visit the lake. The weather was beautiful.
After leaving Milan, we headed to our last stop (and current location), Florence. Florence has a lot of museums to visit, and we ended up in Florence during “free week,” which means none of the museums charge to get in. This has turned out to be a blessing and a curse. It’s great not to have to pay to see anything, but the lines since everything is free are atrocious. Unfortunately, this means we haven’t gotten to see nearly as much as we would have liked to see in our limited time in Florence.
We did get to see Michelangelo’s David, and that was really incredible. The sculpture is truly a masterpiece. It’s so realistic (except that it’s 17 feet tall) that you really feel it could come to life before your eyes. Each and every part of his body from his nostrils to his toes is completely sculpted to perfection with so much attention to detail. Even Dave was completely captivated by it.
On our first day in Florence, we took a day trip to Pisa. The main attraction in Pisa is, of course, the leaning tower. It was actually really fun to see, and even more fun to walk up. You don’t anticipate it, but walking up the tower actually really messes with your sense of equilibrium. You start to feeling as if you are, well, leaning. And the view from the top is incredibly pretty.
We will be spending our last day in Italy in Siena and San Gimignano. We head back to the States on April 1.
As you have seen from the photos, we had a lovely time in Milan. Milan itself is very similar to all big cities, although there is more shopping than you could imagine. We had a great time relaxing and looking in the shops, and Dave got lots of shoes! He beat me in shoe shopping, believe it or not!
The oddest thing we found about Milan was that the siesta is still taken full advantage of. The siesta is a European tradition of closing the shops in the middle of the afternoon to take a break. We didn’t feel this a lot in much of Italy, but it definitely affected our time in Milan. The most difficult part about it was finding a restaurant that was open in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes we would get caught up in whatever we were doing and not want to eat until 3 pm. Unfortunately for us, this was not a reality. All the restaurants closed between 2:30 – 7:30, and so we were left hungry until they opened again. It’s a very different mentality from the 24-hour restaurants we have in the U.S. And we found it very interesting that Milan is the only place we really felt this play significantly into our trip since it is considered the most worldly of all the Italian cities we visited.
While in Milan, we got the opportunity to take several day trips outside the city. The first was to the small town of Bergamo. It was a fun, small town to visit.
The more memorable of the two day trips was to Lake Como. Como is in the very northern part of Italy, and we accidentally missed the stop to Como and ended up in Switzerland. We didn’t stay there long. We walked around a bit, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and headed back down to Como.
Como and Bellagio, the two towns we visited on the lake, were very enjoyable to visit because they weren’t as overrun by tourists as the other places we visited. We ended up with a perfect day to visit the lake. The weather was beautiful.
After leaving Milan, we headed to our last stop (and current location), Florence. Florence has a lot of museums to visit, and we ended up in Florence during “free week,” which means none of the museums charge to get in. This has turned out to be a blessing and a curse. It’s great not to have to pay to see anything, but the lines since everything is free are atrocious. Unfortunately, this means we haven’t gotten to see nearly as much as we would have liked to see in our limited time in Florence.
We did get to see Michelangelo’s David, and that was really incredible. The sculpture is truly a masterpiece. It’s so realistic (except that it’s 17 feet tall) that you really feel it could come to life before your eyes. Each and every part of his body from his nostrils to his toes is completely sculpted to perfection with so much attention to detail. Even Dave was completely captivated by it.
On our first day in Florence, we took a day trip to Pisa. The main attraction in Pisa is, of course, the leaning tower. It was actually really fun to see, and even more fun to walk up. You don’t anticipate it, but walking up the tower actually really messes with your sense of equilibrium. You start to feeling as if you are, well, leaning. And the view from the top is incredibly pretty.
We will be spending our last day in Italy in Siena and San Gimignano. We head back to the States on April 1.
posted by Lindsay | 12:27 PM
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