Drama.  Passion.  Fashion.  The Romans.  The Godfather.  Da Vinci. Pisa. Pizza!  and The Colosseum. 

You guessed it, it’s the land of the Boot. Italy.

That’s where we are now, where the waving of hand and fingers are the only way to make a conversation work and you say “si, si, si” (3x for yes).     

mama mia, MILANO!   

So we got to Milan on Friday morning via Leonardo Da Vinci Int’l Airport

then riding a bus   going to Milan Central.

We saw a McDo so we had breakfast and then proceeded to the Duomo Cathedral via a subway.    

OMG! (O My Gulay) I know i have heard of the Duomo  before and being a fan of churches and cathedrals, it was absolutley insane!!

Specially, as we went up from the subway stairs we were met by the spectaular grand view of

the Duomo.

Its kind of cool not having expectation cause everywhere we turn we were just like blown away by all this cool stuff. 

View this photo

The  inside was simply sublime 

  (although it wouldnt rily rival the Vatican).  The Duomo is  the world’s 2nd largest Gothic cathedral, and the 2nd largest church in the world (next to the Vatican).  Construction began in 1386 and was completed in 1809. We liked it so much we just stayed there at the piazza the whole day

[o, o.. bawal tumingin sa mga chiching..! (sabi ng asawa koh)  ang mata..! 2x   wahehe.]

with a brand new hobby: People feeding + bird watching People watching + bird feeding.  watataaah.               To be FIVE again…  

If you are looking for the  Metro  look for the “M” sign.    

Although there are McDonald’s in Milan the M doesn’t stand for that.  Might as well View this photo.   Ah McDonalds, are there no escaping these things? The first restaurant Mai and I saw as we emerged from Milan Central station was not a pasta-pizzeria restaurant.  It was this:——>>   

That’s it! I’m gonna stop traveling to places where there are McDonalds.  uhrrm, not really. Joks lang.  Ehehe. I’m lovin’ it mcdo pa rin!  ..and how about in Venice? 

Oops. That won’t work either. I guess we’re home sweet home. Right on!

 -Side note, ok u are all going to think we were so lame but I think we went into at least 5 different McDonalds that week, not only does it have cheap, familiar food, but it is SERIOUSLY the only place u can go to the washroom without buying or paying 4 anything.  But the washrooms were soooo weird,

they were all like unisex, haha.  It was so strange.                            

Anyways so the Duomo was cool and so is the

Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II,

the world’s first and oldest shopping mall and one of the most beautiful galleries in the world. 

sabi ni Mai, pang GQ daw ung mga pulis sa italy.. yan ung pinaka pangit sa kanila..wahehe                                                                                      ↓

It was originally designed in 1861

and was an important step in the evolution of the modern glazed and enclosed shopping mall, of which It has inspired the use of the term galleria or simply called “Gale”  

as in Robinson’s shopping mall in ortigas  ;0)

Milan and design. They go together like Dolce and Gabbana. Milan is the center of  creativity in Europe, even my favorite painter-artist-cum philosopher-cum inventor Leonardo da Vinci did most of his works here.  

It is the home of such fashionistas as      and of course not to forget

Eloy’s Ukay-Ukay.

Talk about product placement.

Jan wearing the very modern ELOY’s UKAY-UKAY.. Jan says “Thanx ELOY’s!”       Mai also wears ELOY’s and proud of it.  Haah!

Milan has a lot of really really REALLY nice stores. It would be very easy to drop a fortune here. So if we don’t make it back to the Maple Leaf country, It’s because we’re washing dishes trying to pay off designer sunglasses. 

Speaking of shades the eye glasses here were a work of art in and of themselves. We couldn’t be more boring in this dept. after seeing what the folks here were wearing. 

 The Galleria connects another Milan’s famous landmarks:  

the Teatro ALLa Scala, it’s the world’s most famous opera house since 1776.

Niweis, we stayed there overnight at the Hotel du Giardini 

for 75 euros with free breakfast b4 an onward Train travel to Verona, the very lovely town in Tuscany where Shakespeare adapted his immortal classic    And of course, the gondola city of Venezia (Venice!).

Till next time… keep posted!

ciaO!