Ciao Milano

After a great night's rest, we awoke to my alarm (!) bright and early at 8am. We got ready and headed to the Duomo to see if it was open to the public on Sundays becasue we were ready to climb the stairs to the top!

When we finally found the ticket office we were so excited to see it opened at 9am!! Well, according to our watches, it was 9am and no one was there to let us in yet. I guess Italian time is a lot more relaxed and when they say 9am they probably mean 9:10 or 9:15 so we went and found breakfast. We found a cute little cafe and ordered the "complete" breakfast. When all 3 of us girls ordered, the waitress kind of laughed and was like "I won't ask you if you want anything else, this is a lot of food." It was pretty funny! The breakfast did come with a lot of food but only cost us 10 euro a person (instead of 4.50 euro for just a cappacino!) Included in the meal was orange juice, cappacino, water, yoghurt, a crossiant, toast, marmalade, jam, and nutella! It was so delicious and the perfect way to fuel up before conquering the task ahead of us.

Us girlies at breakfast!

Pretty cappacino...wonder how they do that design??

Our "complete" breakfast...we finished every last bite on that platter

After devouring our breakfast, we headed back to the ticket office and to our surprise and excitement, they were open! We purchased 3 tickets for 5 euro a piece to climb to the top of the Duomo. We found the entrance and started the climb. Funny thing is, it really didn't seem like we went up that many stairs. We were at the top in about 4 minutes. The views were stunning! We thought we were all the way at the top but when we turned the corner, we saw another set of stairs that would take us even higher...the guard was just unlocking the gate to them so we got in line and prepared for more stairs! When we reached the actual top, it was even more incredible than the previous level. Here's some pictures for you to see :)

Duomo rooftop

3 girls ontop of the Duomo...no big deal :)

Loving every minute of my stay in Milan

I love this picture...felt like I was in the sky

I also like this one

After the Duomo excursion, it was time to head back to the Hotel London and check out. Then we took a taxi over to the bus stop that would take us to the airport but we had about 4 hours before we needed to leave so we thought we could do some shopping over there (it was supposed to be the start of the Milano fashion district). Unfortunatly, this area was completely deserted! There was nothing open and no fashion district whatsoever! So Kirsten, Monica, and I decided to be brave and we jumped on the Milano subway system to try and get back to the area we had stayed becasue there was a lot of shopping to do over that way (and we wanted Gelato one last time). Surprisingly, the subway in Milan was very easy to navigate and it was actually a lot nicer than the one in London. We rode it for about 5 stops and got off at the Duomo stop. We shopped around for a while (I may have bought some super cute boots), and then stopped at our favorite Gelato shop one last time. For my last Italian Gelato experience ever, I got a waffle cone with a scoop of Kinder and a scoop of chocolate chip. It was amazing and our 5th time eating it in 3 days :) I probably came back from Milano 5 pounds heavier!

Our last Gelato :(

On the Milano subway!

Anyway, after the Gelato, we were a little sad so we went and laid in the sun by the Duomo for a bit and then headed back to the bus station using the subway again. We grabbed a snack at McDonalds (I know, I had to go all the way to Milan to eat McDonalds) and headed for the bus. Then it was off to the airport and back to London. What a fantastic, relaxing, and rejuvinating vacation (on vacation) this was.

Ciao-

Milano Miss