Flying Home

Sunday was a fun travel day to Milan, with time for seeing a few great things, thanks to my wonderful hosts in Milan. I took at 8:47 train from Siena to Florence and then to Milan (btw - it was the end of DST in Italy Sunday, and I get to fall back again this coming Sunday in the US - how lucky is that???). After a 2pm arrival in Milan I was checked into the hotel at 2:40 and on my way for a walking tour of downtown Milan. I have to admit that I did not do any preparation for my visit to Milan, taking the advice of others that Milan is most a modern business city without the kind of history you find elsewhere in Italy. Well, let's just say that my low expectations were blown away. Our first visit was to St. Ambrose Church, where the body of the great doctor and bishop is housed. The Basilica was begun in the 4th century and looks much different than anything else I have seen in Italy, with its red brick Romanesque construction. Then we were off to the ancient fortress of Milan, constructed in the 12th century and easily the most massive castle I have seen standing in Italy. It was really magnificent. Then we were off through the streets of Milan, where there were tens of thousands of Milanese young people just enjoying the fall weather and hanging out. We proceeded to the square of the Cathedral of Milan, an absolutely gorgeous Gothic church with great height and pretty good windows. The duomo was very busy, both inside and out, and it was good to witness a great amount of devotion on the part of the Italians there. After the duomo we visited La Scala Opera House, and then went along one of the ancient canals engineered by Leonardo da Vinci and had a great pizza in a restaurant that was formerly a carpenter's shop. I was really impressed with Milan - no, it doesn't have the ancient feel of the narrow medieval streets of other towns and cities, but it has so much history and culture, and of course incredible shopping. I was back in my hotel by 9:30 and went to bed before getting up at 4:30am this morning to head to Malpensa. The Delta flight was great, and the new release was The Dark Knight which I had been wanting to see. It made the first three hours of the flight 'fly by'! I'm not in the Atlanta airport killing four hours before the quick flight back to Kansas City and dinner with friends. The only bad part of the trip is turning in my Euros, that are worth less than when I bought them. The dollar has gained a lot on the Euro in the last three weeks, which actually helped our trip until I had to re-exchange. This is quite a small price to pay, however, for such an extraordinary trip! +m