MILANO

Okay I'm sorry for the delay! As soon as I got back into town I realized how much school work I needed to get done before my classes this week. All the group projects are starting to pile up and I needed to get everything done this week also because I'll be gallivanting around next week with my parents!! SO EXCITED that they're coming to visit me, I've got a list of things to do here in Florence and we have plans to visit Torino and Capri as well. But Milan was great, I saw some really cool flagship stores (Burberry, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs) with my Fashion Marketing class and then explored the rest of the time with my roomies. A lot of our "destinations" were finding famous Milanese cuisine - definitely not complaining. And I was impressed with what we found. This also gave us a lot of opportunities to just see different parts of the city. As a side note, I would suggest to anyone going to Milan to invest in the metro tickets (24 or 48 hrs is most practical) because it is not as walkable as Florence.

Of course, this is not a picture of mine, but it is a pretty good representation of the Last Supper by Leonardi da Vinci that we saw at the Santa Maria delle Grazie. It was an inexpensive attraction, but you only get to be in the room of the painting for 15 minutes. They are very serious about keeping this thing around for a long time to come. As you have probably noticed the section right below Jesus has been cut out to make a doorway - they did this long ago in order to get from the kitchen to the dining room easier. This along with the type of paint da Vinci used showed that no one realized what the significance of this painting would be! I felt very special to be in the same room as this work of art. It takes up the entire wall and its colors may have faded but its still magnificent. 

This is the Duomo of Milan. Its very gothic style and HUGE! 

Door of the Duomo

Isn't it beautiful?! The stain glass windows were stories high and so vivid and colorful it was amazing. Definitely a recommended stop. After this, we went right next door to the museum that was holding an exhibit of Picasso's work. I obviously wasn't able to take any pictures but I loved seeing these works of art also! It just so happened that these paintings and sculptures were there, I don't think I would have ever been able to see so many of this great man's work otherwise. After all of that we were hungry... 

This is a Panzerotti. Pizza dough folded over hundreds of different combinations and deep fried. There's only ONE place to get the real thing in Milan - Luini's. 

Not sure what it was about these simple ingredients of mozzarella and tomato that made this so fantastic, but I've had few things that come as close to how good this was. They also had other types with prosciutto and veggies, also sweet ones with nutella and jams. We were going to go back on Sunday to try those but it was closed :(

Risotto Milanese. Again simple, but incredibly flavorful if done right. This traditional rice dish of Milan is yellow from the saffron. 

Another traditional food of Milan: Panetone. Although you can find this dessert in most areas of Italy, Milan claims the origin of this bread and cake mix. Ours had chocolate in it and was topped with a scoop of crema gelato. YUM!

These are goods from Princi - a bakery that I learned about from my Fluenz (computer program) Italian instructor. The little bites have spinach and ricotta and the other just cheese. The pizza was the best I've had in Italy!

Milan is a great big city, and we had a blast. Definitely think its a good weekend trip because I felt I didn't need more time. We also went to the Galleria and spinned on the bull's balls for good luck, and saw an exhibit of hand crafted furniture art and ceramics at Fornasetti. Rinascente and 10 Corso Como are two awesome stores that we visited that are worth a few hours. 

I will have lots to tell you after my adventures with my parents! Missing all of you back home, sending my love!

VA