Milan, Italy

Unless shopping at Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, and Luis Vuitton is a regular occurance for you there's not much need for you to visit Milan, at least in my humble opinion.

When you exit the train station you're dumped right into a huge city. Might as well have been in New York, minus the flashy billboards, neon signs, and plentiful restaurants. Just lots of big buildings and traffic. We had to buy a map to find our hotel. The most expensive map of the trip. Fitting I suppose. We crashed for a bit at the hotel once we got there, and then tried to figure out how to see The Last Supper. The only thing we wanted to do in Milan. We quickly found out that just wasn't going to happen. If you want to only go see The Last Supper you have to book a reservation months in advance. Otherwise, you can book a tour, which would include The Last Supper. Tours for that day were booked, but there was a spot the next morning. So we head down the street to see if we can change our train tickets. We can, but luckily don't right then. Luckily cause as soon as we get back to the hotel to have the guy book the tour, we're told they filled the rest of the spots. In less than 20 minutes. So No Go on the Michaelangelo.

Instead we took the subway to the Milan Cathedral (which was actually almost worth the entire stop in Milan as unless you've been to this Cathedral before, you have seen nothing like it) and the shopping district. We went in a few stores then got depressed. Nothing even had price tags. Price tags might have at least made it amusing, but without price tags it just means if you have to ask you can't afford it. So we left that quickly behind us in our dust. For the life of me I can't recall eating in Milan, but I know we had some gelatto outside the Duomo (Cathedral). We probably had McDonald's or something, cause I really don't remember. Oh wait, it might be coming to me. Someplace small. Eh, I got nothing.

Milan Cathedral

Gellato!

That was it. That was our time in Milan. OH, I do remember where we ate cause the only thing I took with me from this city was my glass Coke bottle from dinner. We just had dinner at some sidewalk restaurant. I had noodles and pesto, and it was actually one of my favorite meals.

So while I certainly don't dissuade anyone from visiting Milan, have a plan of what you want to do and what you want to see. Get tickets well in advance for the Last Supper. And bring about $2,000 if you want to shop.