Lombardy

We took a quick trip to Milan to check out a few of the sights there. When we started talking about spending time in Italy, we initially thought Milan would be our home base. It’s a bigger, more metropolitan city and we wanted a place that was well connected. We also wanted an apartment with reasonable rent, since we were planning on being gone for a lot of the time. That’s how we ended up in Torino instead. But we knew that we needed to spend at least a couple of days in Milan.

We decided to take the train for this trip, so we took the bus into Torino one morning and caught the train. It’s been a while since we took a train trip and it was fun to be back at it. We ended up at the massive train station in Milan. It is from the Mussolini era and is almost too big and impressive. We planned this trip for two days, but only booked tickets for the second day. The first day was just for exploring and going with the flow. We walked across town and ended up at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (the big fancy shopping center) for lunch. We had a couple of pizzas that were fairly tasty. Milan is a fashion capital, but that aspect was a bit lost on us. But the stores look nice, some people are dressed to the nines, and people are excited to be there.

The weather was picture perfect, so we enjoyed some time on the main piazza in front of the Duomo (cathedral). We visited the gothic cathedral in Köln and it is dark and forboding. The Duomo in Milan feels like the exact opposite. It is made of light (sometimes pink!) marble and looks bright and ethereal. We stopped for some excellent gelato, then we wandered up to the Sforza castle and park before finding our apartment for the night and getting ready to find some dinner. One thing we have had to learn in Europe is that making dinner reservations is safest. Sometimes they are happy to find you a table. Sometimes they get you a table, but let you know they will need it back at a certain time for someone who did reserve. And sometimes they have plenty of room in the place but because they didn’t know you were coming, they don’t have a chef or they didn’t buy enough food. So we try to make reservations these days. The place we went to was cute and we had a typical Italian dinner: a pasta course, a main course, and dessert. Then we wandered over to the Navigli area and walked along the canals and enjoyed the energy of lots of people out at the cafes and bars lining the water. After a long day of travel, it was time to turn in, so we boarded the tram, which had to have been at least 80 years old, to get back to our room.

The next morning, we were up and out. We stopped by a neighborhood cafe for a morning croissant and a drink, just like everybody else in the area…the place was crazy! We had two tours booked, but we had a little extra time, so we went to the museum for the famous opera house, La Scala. We watched a rehearsal on stage with some ballet students and the tech crew. We also saw some stunning costumes and other items pertaining to the opera house. Then we headed to the Duomo for our guided tour there. The Duomo was great, but the tour was just ok. It was during a mass service, so it was hard to hear the tour guide. I found it strange that they would allow all the tourists in during the service. Our tour was supposed to be in English, but our tour guide wasn’t all that fluent. But the building and windows are stunning and it was nice to hear some of the history. It’s another building that was built on the site of a previous church, which was built on the site of a Roman temple. It took hundreds of years to complete, much like the cathedral in Köln. We got to visit some of the archaeological dig below the church as well as the roof. Walking around amongst the statues and flying butresses on the roof was really fun. All the gothic spires are decorated with statues, including statues on the tops of each spire. There are more than 3,400 statues decorating the Duomo.

After the hot trip around the roof, we just had to make another stop for gelato. Then it was off to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. You have to have advance reservations in order to get in, so we basically planned our trip around our tickets for this one thing. After the heat and chaos at the Duomo, the tranquility and order at the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie was welcome. They only allow a limited number of people in at once and everyone has to go through a series of airlocks to maintain the temperature and humidity in the refectory where the painting is located. It’s pretty fragile due to how Leonardo chose to paint it, so they are really careful. The painting is truly stunning in person and it was worth the trip. Also, our tour there was excellent–the guide was knowledgable and communicated so much great info. We had also been watching lectures on Leonardo for a couple weeks in preparation–well worth the effort. Then it was off to the train station for the ride home. It was a good, if quick, trip to Milan.

Liguria

We are nearing the end of our time here in Italy, so we thought we should probably take advantage of our proximity to the Mediterranean and enjoy a few days on the coast. We found a little apartment on AirBnB in a small town called Borgia Verezzi. The drive south was absolutely beautiful. The skies were clear, so we had a great view of the Alps and the leaves are all out on the trees, so the landscape was deliciously green. We didn’t really have any plans for while we were there, so we just took it day by day. Nathan had his piano along, so he practiced and worked on languages, as usual. I drew and listened to my audiobooks. We walked along the boardwalk and hiked into the hills behind town. There was a point on our hike where we could see almost all the way to Genova on the east.

It’s still the quiet season for tourists there, since the weather is still too cold for hanging out on the beach. But it was still nice to have the clear, blue skies and the beautiful sea. We enjoyed a nice dinner in the neighboring town of Pietra Ligure one night, even though our walk was chilly after an afternoon rain storm. We were the only guests in the restaurant and they took very good care of us. We love Ligurian food…pesto, seafood, and focaccia. We also had melon and prosciutto and the melon was perfect.

Piemonte

Since we spent so much of our first six weeks away from Torino, we figured we should probably spend some time here before it’s time to leave.

One day, we drove toward the mountains and the monastery of Sacra di San Michele. It’s built on the top of a steep hill at the mouth of one of the canyons. It’s quite striking and lots of people drive and walk up to it. It was built in the 10th century and has come to be a symbol of the region of Piemonte. The views were nice, even though the air quality wasn’t the best. It was still a nice outing and a good walk up the mountain.

Last week we spent one whole day wandering around Troino again. Even though we toured the city when we first arrived, it was good to get reacquainted and to see some of the places we missed the first time. We croseed the river Po and walked up the biggest hill in town for a view over the city and across the wide valley to the Alps. It was another perfectly lovely spring day, so we wandered through the city and the parks. We stopped in at an Indian restaurant for dinner and then we had tickets for a show. It was a Queen tribute band. Europeans love Queen and we have seen a couple of other shows like this and they can be fun. This one was pretty good, but also a bit wierd. They kept bringing out “guests” to sing with the band. Now, keep in mind that all the performers are basically impersonators. Sometimes it made sense, like “David Bowie” to sing the song Pressure. But then “David” stuck around and sang one of his own songs. They had “Axel Rose” and “George Michael” and some opera singer. It was odd, but kinda fun, too. We took the late bus home afterward.

Our last experience was probably our most authentically “Italian” so far. Italian communities hold festivals called “sagras” celebrating a local saint or a product of the region. Some estimate 20,000 to 30,000 sagre are held in Italy every year. We visited the town of Cavallermaggiore for the Sagra del Gorgonzola. We like blue cheese, especially gorgonzola, so we thought this might be fun. We reserved two seats for the community lunch and drove an hour to the town. The weather has turned cold again here, but we (relunctantly) bundled up and went to see what this festival was all about. There were the predictable things, like street food vendors and some music. There were also some strange booths set up, like the vacuum salesman and the table with underwear for €1. We stopped and talked to a guy from Sicily who had a booth selling cannoli and pistachio products. He filled two little cannoli shells with sweet ricotta and topped them with pistachio cream for us…heavenly!

We walked over to the big tent set up for lunch and got in the long line with many, many locals. We paid for our tickets and were escorted to our assigned table. They had nice dishes and real napkins set out. Each place had a menu listing three antipasti (appetizers), two primi (first course), two secondi (main course), and a dessert. Every course included gorgonzola cheese, except dessert (we did see some vendors selling gorgonzola gelato, but we didn’t try any).

We weren’t sure if they were going to have us choose of the menu or what. Well, no choice necessary. The servers would walk around with big trays of each dish and serve it to each person. So we tried it all! The quality was outstanding and the cheese was sometimes the star and sometimes the supporting player, but always yummy! The town council was seated next to us and they struck up a conversation with us. We were somewhat of an oddity, since I don’t think they get a lot of foreign visitors. It was so fun to dive into the local culture and Italians are generally so warm and hospitable. They even tolerate the weirdos that don’t drink wine!

That’s it for now. We are just about one week away from leaving here and heading to Germany again. We are going to do a lot here in Torino this week, including catching some of the jazz festival in the city and checking out the most popular museums. We will let you know how it goes next week! Have a good one!