Italian Fashion: Milan to Medieval
So I haven’t quite had time to write about it until now (you’ll soon understand why), but a couple of weekends ago, Theresa and I decided that, since it was so nice to be away from studio for a weekend in London, we may as well leave again, and got on a train to Milan.
Now, last year, we blew off studio the weekend before a project was due to drive to Kentucky to see John Mayer. This year, we were gone for both of the two weekends before our first big project was due. I’m pretty sure that I got an A on the post-John Mayer project last year, so maybe that will mean I’ll get an A+ on this one! Despite a little risk, we finished our projects and wrote off our less-than-responsibly timed traveling as some on-the-site research across Europe, and I have no regrets.
Thursday after studio and dinner, we packed up tiny little packs and went to the train station in time to catch an overnight (and cramped) train to Milan. We got there a little bit after 7 a.m., so we saw the sun rise and really did have the entire day to explore. I had already been there, so it was fun to try and find my way around. At one point Theresa and I both weren’t looking where we were going and we both tripped at the same time, which was pretty hilarious…After exploring the inside of the gigantic duomo (cathedral), we walked around for a while just looking at churches and stores, then came back to the duomo and climbed up to the top, where we spent almost two hours exploring among the spires and buttresses and gargoyles. This was definitely the highlight of the day, and something I wasn’t able to do last time. After we covered every inch of the roof of the duomo, we climbed down and went for a big lunch at the pizza place that Jimmy and I went to last time. After lunch, we explored some more, took some funny photos, and went to the Sforza Castle and museum for a few hours in the afternoon. Then, after some delicious gelato, we came back to the shopping area, avoided a creepy guy who thought we were Swedish, and hit up the stores. Theresa bought a cute blue sweater, although I couldn’t convince her to get Eurotrash print wife-beaters with me…after we were all shopped out and the sun had set, we took an evening train to Torino and found our hotel, where we discovered that sleeping in a bed is definitely taken for granted.
We woke up for a good breakfast at our hotel and spent Saturday in Torino (a.k.a. Turin). In the morning, we spent a while in San Lorenzo, which is one of my favorite churches that we’ve seen- it was actually a lot more interesting inside than the city cathedral, in my opinion. The people of Torino all were very nice- they were eager to tell us all about the famous shroud of Turin, which is now kept in a huge aluminum box in the cathedral, although there are a lot of exhibits in different churches around the city that tell about it. In the afternoon, we climbed a huge hill on the other side of the river for good panoramic views of the city, although we couldn’t really see any of the surrounding mountains because of the fog. Then we explored a more residential area and climbed a huge staircase, basically just followed our feet. We came back over the river to walk through a large park that had a medieval-reconstruction/working town inside of it, which was a great surprise, and a lot of fun. We bought homemade chocolate and listened to Italians in costumes sing “Scarborough Fair”, then explored some more neighborhoods, piazze, and churches, including St. Teresa. After more amazing gelato and the best popcorn I’ve had yet in Europe, we went to mass at San Lorenzo, figuring if we couldn’t understand what was going on, at least we could look around at the architecture. After mass, we went to a nice dinner nearby and then walked around and hung out in a bookstore until our train left back to Rome. The train ride wasn’t as bad as getting to Milan, but it was nice to be back to Rome…until we remembered that we had an entire project to finish. Oops. Ah well, I wouldn’t trade it for anything- a ‘Teresai’ date was much needed, and long overdue.
For pictures: http://nd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135070&l=6e387&id=5612188
Now, last year, we blew off studio the weekend before a project was due to drive to Kentucky to see John Mayer. This year, we were gone for both of the two weekends before our first big project was due. I’m pretty sure that I got an A on the post-John Mayer project last year, so maybe that will mean I’ll get an A+ on this one! Despite a little risk, we finished our projects and wrote off our less-than-responsibly timed traveling as some on-the-site research across Europe, and I have no regrets.
Thursday after studio and dinner, we packed up tiny little packs and went to the train station in time to catch an overnight (and cramped) train to Milan. We got there a little bit after 7 a.m., so we saw the sun rise and really did have the entire day to explore. I had already been there, so it was fun to try and find my way around. At one point Theresa and I both weren’t looking where we were going and we both tripped at the same time, which was pretty hilarious…After exploring the inside of the gigantic duomo (cathedral), we walked around for a while just looking at churches and stores, then came back to the duomo and climbed up to the top, where we spent almost two hours exploring among the spires and buttresses and gargoyles. This was definitely the highlight of the day, and something I wasn’t able to do last time. After we covered every inch of the roof of the duomo, we climbed down and went for a big lunch at the pizza place that Jimmy and I went to last time. After lunch, we explored some more, took some funny photos, and went to the Sforza Castle and museum for a few hours in the afternoon. Then, after some delicious gelato, we came back to the shopping area, avoided a creepy guy who thought we were Swedish, and hit up the stores. Theresa bought a cute blue sweater, although I couldn’t convince her to get Eurotrash print wife-beaters with me…after we were all shopped out and the sun had set, we took an evening train to Torino and found our hotel, where we discovered that sleeping in a bed is definitely taken for granted.
We woke up for a good breakfast at our hotel and spent Saturday in Torino (a.k.a. Turin). In the morning, we spent a while in San Lorenzo, which is one of my favorite churches that we’ve seen- it was actually a lot more interesting inside than the city cathedral, in my opinion. The people of Torino all were very nice- they were eager to tell us all about the famous shroud of Turin, which is now kept in a huge aluminum box in the cathedral, although there are a lot of exhibits in different churches around the city that tell about it. In the afternoon, we climbed a huge hill on the other side of the river for good panoramic views of the city, although we couldn’t really see any of the surrounding mountains because of the fog. Then we explored a more residential area and climbed a huge staircase, basically just followed our feet. We came back over the river to walk through a large park that had a medieval-reconstruction/working town inside of it, which was a great surprise, and a lot of fun. We bought homemade chocolate and listened to Italians in costumes sing “Scarborough Fair”, then explored some more neighborhoods, piazze, and churches, including St. Teresa. After more amazing gelato and the best popcorn I’ve had yet in Europe, we went to mass at San Lorenzo, figuring if we couldn’t understand what was going on, at least we could look around at the architecture. After mass, we went to a nice dinner nearby and then walked around and hung out in a bookstore until our train left back to Rome. The train ride wasn’t as bad as getting to Milan, but it was nice to be back to Rome…until we remembered that we had an entire project to finish. Oops. Ah well, I wouldn’t trade it for anything- a ‘Teresai’ date was much needed, and long overdue.
For pictures: http://nd.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2135070&l=6e387&id=5612188