Milan

Originally, the plan was to go to Cinque Terre, and visit the coast of Italy. But we checked the weather and it was supposed to be cold and rainy the entire time we were there. So we decided to scrap that idea and just spend more time in Milan. One of Tom's friends studied in Milan a few summers ago so he told us some cool things to go see. 

I need to plan things better and stop arriving at new places on Sundays. Nothing is open ever, so it's hard go walk around and see things when you can't even get food. But we managed. We walked around for a bit and just got a feel for the city. The next day we tried to go to a Design Museum but it was closed (an oversight on our part, we forget that it's not tourist season so things aren't open all the time), so we walked around some more and took our time at cafes drinking coffee. We also went to a really cool museum, the museum of art and science. The first floor had a big exhibit focusing on Leonardo Da Vinci and his 'book' (it's more like notes really) about how to paint/do art well. It can be really hard to understand, so the museum really dumbed it down and made it easy to understand. The bottom floor was my favourite. It was all about how to tell if a work is authentic or not, and they had different stations where you could see for yourself. I'm a sucker for anything interactive, something about doing it yourself is just so much cooler. There were paintings and it showed you what an authentic one really aged like and a newer copy look like. They had the same kind of things with pretty much any material you could imagine: metals, ceramic, amber, ivory, and wood. (There's probably more that I'm forgetting). 

We also saw Da Vinci's Last Supper. It was actually pretty impressive. It's a huge mural on a wall. For some reason I thought it was a regular sized painting, but I was wrong. That's really all there was to see there, it was a giant room that only has that painting, it used to be a part of a church and was the stables or something? Honestly I can't remember. Too many random facts about art I've seen are floating around my head. (Yes, I am aware I would fail an art history class, Tom has informed me many times when I just roll my eyes after he spouts off some obscure fact).

Another art museum went to (I'm never going to want to go to an art museum after this trip again...) was exhibiting Picasso works. We found it accidentally and strolled through. 

We also went to this place called the "Design Supermarket" It's in the bottom floor of a super trendy department store. It has designer everything from chairs to lights to utensils. Both Tom and I really enjoyed that, it was fun to look at the crazy things some people make, and tom was in ultra design geek mode, just naming designer after designer.

So most of what we did in Milan was museums and cafes, but I don't see anything wrong with that.It was raining most of the time anyway, which makes me really glad we didn't go to Cinque Terre. All there is to do there is outdoorsy stuff. Tom and I love that, but it would have been cold, wet and miserable. Also, sorry for the lack of pictures, Tom was seriously slacking on camera duty. He was too busy shopping. Not really, but he did buy more than me! He bought a coat.  I didn't buy anything actually, mainly because he was hovering over my shoulder saying things like "Do you really need that?" "You have so many clothes already..." "I don't know if that will fit in your bag, maybe you should think about that." Way to kill the shopping mood.... Such a buzz kill when I find something I like! But it really is for the best, more money to spend on food, and less crap to carry around in my backpack.

Most of the museums we went into, you couldn't take pictures anyway. So it's not all Tom's fault. Just mostly.