That Time We Slept Through Our Visit to Milan
In the Summer of 2014, my friend Brian and I hopped a plane in Chicago, connecting in Newark, on our way to Milan. We had meticulously crafted a two week tour of Italy's major cities. We were expected to land in Milan early the next morning and spend the day exploring. We were scheduled to catch a train to Florence the next morning, about 24 hours after our arrival in Milan. The weather was so bad on the morning of our departure, we made the quick decision to head to the airport early and see if an earlier flight to EWR was available. We managed to snag a flight before all the other flights of the day were canceled or delayed. While flying, the weather did not let up and our plane had to divert to Albany. We sat on the runway in Albany, for god knows how long, before finally taking off on our way to Newark. Luckily our plane from EWR to Milan was also delayed and as we ran through the airport, we arrived at the gate, just as the plane was boarding first class. Exhausted but jubilant, we took our seats on our way to Italy!
Fast forward 8 hours later, we landed in Milan, excited & drained. After checking into our hotel, we dropped our luggage, collected a cappuccino, and toured around the city, seeing as much as we could before our eyes would not stay open one second longer. We managed to visit the Duomo and the fashion district before heading back to the hotel for a quick afternoon nap.
Duomo di Milano is magnificent. The cities most important landmark, the Duomo was built in the 14th Century and is filled with marble interiors and the largest collection of stained glass in all of Christendom. In our two weeks travel, we roamed through numerous Italian churches but the first stop was the most awe-inspiring.
Unbeknownst to us, Santa Maria delle Grazie was closed the day we were visiting and we were not able to snag tickets to Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Last Supper. It was a huge disappointment and we often talk about going back to Italy for a day, just to see the painting.
The tram system in Milan is one of the biggest in the world and the golden yellow cars are a staple around downtown Milano. We passed fashion houses and financial institutions, and all the commerce that makes Milan the style and money capital of Italy. Then we decided to head back to the hotel for a "quick nap".
When we work up hours later, it was dark and cold and we had missed our entire afternoon in Milan. I was sad to have abandoned my plans for people watching and street style photography at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the glass domed shopping center filled with mosaic tiles and high end designers. I wanted to see the beautiful shops in the Quadrilatero Neighborhood District and sip aperitivo on the Navigli Canals. We planned to pose for photos along the Arco della Pace and see the vertical garden at Bosco Verticale. At a high level, we had scanned Milan but we had yet to feel the connection to the city that we would later feel for the rest of Italy. Bar Luce, Cioccolati Italiani, and Peck were at the top of my list for meals, but had little time and found an Italian restaurant near our hotel and we thrilled they still had open reservations for two jet lagged tourist.
Despite the last minute reservation and the lack of research for restaurants nearby, this meal at L'Immagine Ristorante Bistrot, gave us the connection to Milan that we were somehow missing. We had many incredible dinners on our Italian vacation, but this meal in Milan, the first meal we had on our trip, is the only one I still remember and think about quite often. For dinner we sampled various antipasti, a pasta first course and a meat second course. The waitstaff continued to serve us complimentary snacks we did not order but ever bite made us fall in love with Milan. Like all our meals after, this one started with a bottle of wine and ended with a carafe of limoncello. The act that kept this one at our #1 spot through out the entire trip, were the jars of candy they brought out with the check. We sampled various Italian candies and even pocketed some for the walk home.
Despite the diverted flight and the jet lagged nap and the missed opportunity to see The Last Supper, we knew this Italian vacation was going to be a trip of a lifetime. Rather than explore the party scene at night, we went back to sleep, where we, naturally, slept through our alarm and almost missed or train to Bologna. Ciao for now!
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