Love Milan

Kathy and Silvana - friends united!
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Milan Day 3 18 May 2009

We awoke partly refreshed and partly like a boxer recovering from a knock-out.  Before going out with our friends from Milan, we had the opportunity to have a quick mooch around Milan.  First stop was a local café. When we saw someone noncholantly cutting slice after slice of beautiful prosciutto and layering it on a pizza, we imagined what each slice would have cost in Auckland and we both had that feeling - yes we are back in Italy!!  We both savoured the moment as we drank our coffees al fresco in the warm morning.

Milan,

Vincenti family
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Later in the morning, Silvana arrived at the hotel to take us out for lunch at her apartment.  En route we visited her parents' grave, which was lovely.  A huge marble slab, finely polished, with fresh flowers, colour photos in frames of both and a quite substantial bronze sculpture of an olive stump with two new shoots growing on either side of the stump.  As I took a photo a curator came over to challenge me, in case (we imagine) I was stealing the design of the sculpture.  Kathy asked Silvana if she came often to the grave and she replied, "No, only once a week."  Her mother had visited her husband's grave daily for years.  All around there was evidence of fresh flowers on graves.

Memories of another fantastic meal in Milan
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Anyway, we continued on in Fabio's near new Citroen - a real beauty - to their daughter in law's place a little further out of Milan to see their new grandson.  It was lovely to meet Anna and later to see Roberto, who seemed so happy and contented with his domestic life.

Back to Silvana's for lunch.  The antipasto was delicious and we thought it was lunch, until the pasta was produced - beautiful ravioli.  Ah, that was lunch - but no, there was the Milanese veal cutlets with grilled courgettes, eggplants and peppers. Ah, that was awesome - but no, there was the "dolce" or sweet - some very tempting pastries filled with custard (yummm....) with strawberries.  Ahhh....  So good.  In the back of our minds though was the fact that we were going out to dinner that night.  Hmmm..

Our 9pm dinner date for pizza with Silvana, Fabio, Simona, Emmanuele, Tiziana, her sister and mother turned out to be a bit different to our image of a quick bite at Pizza Hut.  Firstly the restaurant was located in a very trendy part of Milan filled with elegant Italians dining al fresco.  After a stroll around this lovely part of Milan, not far from a very famous art gallery, we sat down to dinner.  The chef arrived to announce his recommendations for dinner, including antipasto, pizza, seafood pasta and yes, dolce.  The food was all fantastic and despite being full, it was too good to let this opportunity go.  We had a really lovely evening, only slightly tinged by the parking ticket that awaited us when we returned to the car.  Of course Fabio wouldn't hear of us picking up the bill, or sharing.

After returning to the hotel after midnight, it was time to get some sleep before we had to be at the station by about 8am the next morning.  We sank into bed, tired, but very content having spent time with people we love and felt their love to us in waves.  They are times we treasure.

Milan Day 4 19 May 2009

One of the great things about the hotel in Milan was free internet.  So, we were chatting on msn to Shannon and Jordan and when I finally logged off Shannon joked with me about how we were probably going to be at the station hours early (which we were).  After unsuccessfully trying to pay the hotel bill (already paid!), we walked to the station - the train wasn't even there, so we found the waiting room and sat in this somewhat gracious and stately room.  The entire Milan station was built by Mussolini and is a work of art in itself.  10 minutes before departure we decided it was time to womble to the train, which had now arrived, via a shop to buy supplies for the journey.  While I waited outside the shop, I grew increasingly agitated as I watched people hurry to the train.  When Kathy finally emerged, we realised we were in carriage 1 as we passed carriage 23.  Way down there in the distance was our destination, with pack and large trunk on wheels, we strode more purposefully toward the distant carriage.  Our agitation grew as we saw people running ahead of us and diving into carriages.  Finally all this tension got the better of us and we got in to carriage 7 with the plan to walk inside the train to our booked seats.  Bad idea.  It was my job to carry my pack, my two other bags and Kathy's trunk on wheels, except the aisle was too narrow for the trunk to be wheeled, so I had to carry it all!!  With veins nearly popping by the time I reached the end of carriage 7, red faced and puffing I decided this was the impossible task and ejected all the bags and myself from the train and commenced to run along side the train to carriage 2, pack bouncing on my back, dragging the trunk on wheels, while Kathy continued in the carriages.  I finally arrived at our First Class cabin and tried to retain some composure before slumping into my seat dripping with sweat as the Euro Star inched away from the station.  We glanced at our travelling companions with looks of "No really, we are experienced travellers, more or less just like the locals...."  Just don't anyone tell our children.