Duomo di Milano

Milan's cathedral, or Duomo, is truly magnificent! (I've blogged about it before with photos... and I'm going to do it again, ha!)

A fun fact from the Wikipedia page (linked above): Milan's cathedral is the fifth largest in the world! -- and the largest in Italy.

Not from the Wikipedia page... but told to me by Clara, the lady that runs the Cooking in Milan classes: the famous bronze Madonnina (Mother Mary) statue atop the cathedral has always been the tallest point in all of Milan. Today, there are two modern buildings in the city that are taller... and they each have a mini Madonnina on top, in respect to the Cathedral's! The only way the OK was granted to construct each building that tall, was if a mini Mary statue was put on top. I love that. I really like how Italy sticks to tradition out of respect for... well... tradition.

Spring is here!

One weekend in the Fall, the duomo's piazza is covered with white paper and people can create public art by writing and/or drawing. Lots of fun. I like when cities create fun communities like this.

Walkabout Tour - Pisa

As our last stop for the day tour with Walkabout Tours, we went to Pisa. We had less than two hours but it was all free time. (Some people bought extra tickets when booking the tour and climbed the leaning tower.)

Mom, Aunt Gail, and I enjoyed the time walking around. We mostly walked around the main plaza, Piazza dei Miracoli. Within the plaza, there is the cathedral (duomo), baptistry, and leaning tower.

Duomo di Pisa

The Baptistry

Welp, the signs are working well...

Le Sorelle -- so cute  : )

We were quite tired by the end of the day (8am - 9pm), but also very satisfied. It was a GREAT day and we were able to see A LOT!

Walkabout Tour - San Gimignano

I really like the small, medieval hilltop town of San Gimignano. After lunch, the next stop on our day-tour with Walkabout was having some free time to wander and explore San Gimignano. This was my second time here, the first being about 10 years ago during college. This was my mom and Aunt Gail's first time to San Gimignano. I think we all could have used a bit more time here, but we did enjoy a wander through and climbing up to see beautiful sights of the Tuscan hills.

Piazza della Cisterna

Le Sorelle (The Sisters)

San Gimignano's duomo

(a bit different from Siena's, eh?!)

Loving the time with Mom in Italy!

I wish this was the view I received after climbing all staircases:

The three ladies  : )

Adventuring through Italy

San Gimignano still have 14 towers standing

<3 Tuscany

Duomo di Siena

The cathedral (duomo) in Siena is one of my favorites! (...at least of the ones I've seen)

The black and white striped marble, both outside and inside, makes me feel like I've stepped into a scene from Alice in Wonderland. It is stunning.

Our tour through included a ticket to go into the duomo and this time I went into a side room that I have never visited before. It was covered in frecoes on the ceiling... and was a library! (No wonder I loved it so much):

Florence - best airbnb apartment ever

We took the train from Cinque Terre to Florence. Easy ride -- we transferred about 15 minutes in, at the La Spezia train station and it was direct from there!

Following the directions to walk from the train station to our airbnb apartment, it was a nice 10-minute walk. Arriving, we found that we had booked, basically, the best apartment ever! It was lovely inside but the view and location were truly amazing. The apartment (here on airbnb) is next to the duomo (cathedral) in the center of the city and the place's terrace has an amazing view of the dome!

Seriously. This was our view from the apartment's terrace... and not zoomed in!

One more time... now a nighttime view:

I very much enjoyed our time in Florence. We went on a full day-trip the day after arriving and that was great. I'll post about that next. The tour was through Walkabout and it was great. I'm usually not a big fan of tours but I liked that this one was set up with structured time AND free time. Everything was really nicely done and the day was well-balanced. It was recommended to me by a friend here and I can see why. (Walkabout also does a tour to Cinque Terre from Florence!)

Back to Florence, though... we shopped in the market, enjoyed a great dinner at the same restaurant that my mom and I went to about 7 years ago with my dad and brothers, and enjoyed walking through the city. We really only had about half a day to enjoy the city since we chose to do the Tuscany tour on our full day.

The place we had dinner at is Trattoria dal Giorgio. It's a fixed price (I think about 13 or 14 euro each) and you are able to choose a drink, first course, second course, side, and dessert. We love the price and we love the food!

On our walk, we went along the river to the Ponte Vecchio

(ponte vecchio translates to old bridge)

In the Piazza della Signoria, is the Palazzo Vecchio

Florence's duomo from the front (the same building that we can see the side and main dome from the apartment we stayed at!)

al fresco painting on the outside of a building

Social time on the steps of the duomo

During my undergrad, I studied Italian for about a month in Florence. It was my first time abroad and my first time to Italy. A dream come true! I remember the moment that I first saw the duomo. My friend and I had gone for a walk at dusk and thought we were lost. We were attempting to find our way to school so that we would know how to get there the next morning for the first day of classes. We turned a corner... then turned around... and all of a sudden the duomo was towering (literally!) over us. In the darkening sky, it looked like cardboard and I thought it was fake. To this day, that is still one of the most surreal moments of my life. It took a few moments for me to realize it was real, it was a gigantic church, AND that we had found our school! (Our Italian language school was three doors down from the duomo. Incredible.)

Denver friends in townm

Eleanor and Kevin are friends of mine from Denver. They are stellar people and a stellar couple. I was happy to be able to spend a couple days with them in Milan. It was their first time here and we enjoyed a beautiful weekend around the city!

Of course we began their visit in Milan with panzerotti from Luini's

Lovely couple  : )

Visiting the Prada Foundation
and Bar Luce - the 60's style Milanese cafe designed by Wes Anderson

Mmmmm cookies at the market along the Navigli canals

Walking along Ticinese

Such a beautiful day to go atop a cathedral!

Eleanor... just walking along the roof of the Duomo   : )

enjoying Milano

Below are some photos from recent times and some not-so-recent times... all around Milan:

I took this early morning photo as I walked across the Piazza del Duomo to get from the tram to the metro... on my way to the airport when I went to Uzbekistan for a week!

We have had some rainy days but, overall, it has been a beautiful spring!

Rainy Duomo with tram lines:

I really like the Cadorna train station. It is small and easy to get to within the city. This is the train station that I use to connect to the Malpensa airport.

Gae Aulenti designed the area in front of the station. She passed away in 2012 but did some cool projects - read about her on the Wikipedia page here.

There is also a sculpture installed in the piazza at Cadorna, which I love. It is a needle, thread, and knot (Ago, Filo, e Nodo). The sculpture begins in one area of the piazza and, seemingly, goes underground to thread through the ground and come up in another area. Very cool.

Carrie and I sporting our neon colors and neon lights for a teacher's birthday celebration.

 A group of girls from school got together for a potluck brunch on a long weekend when we stayed in town. (This was a while ago...)