March 16th
We woke up a bit late this morning since, in Italy, shops do not open until the afternoon on Mondays if they even open at all. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed out on the town without the knowledge of a guide.
Thanks to Mr. Ort's map skills and very rough grasp of the Italian language we all took the tram and the underground (European for subway) to the Duomo Cathedral. For only 2€ we were able to have a tour of the unbelievable cathedral. It is so big and full of so much history that you could easily spend the better part of the day just soaking in the atmosphere and the humidity (the place is so big that you can literally see the humidity in the cathedral).
After the cathedral we decided to head to lunch. Since eating near the biggest tourist attraction in Milano can lead to over priced, and less than stellar food, we hopped on a tram and just started heading nord (north). Twenty minutes later we hopped off the tram to experience authentic Italian cooking. Sadly, since we just hopped on an unfamiliar tram we ended up in Milano's version of China town. With our stomach already growling we decided that Italian Chinese would do just fine.
Next was the girls most important destination... shopping of course There is a 4km stretch of shop after shop. We spent several hours spending our parents money. Next, gelato and we headed back to the hotel. All in all there was a lot of walking and purchasing happening today.
One sad note. The cathedral doesn't allow pictures from the inside so we couldn't take any of the gorgeous shots we would have liked to take. Shopping also isn't a very note worthy photo opportunity either. So no pictures. However, since you got so many pictures yesterday we will just call it even.
With our feet tired we hopped back on subways and trams and ended up back in our hotel safe and sound. Mrs. Reinhard played catch phrase with the girls while Mr. Ort set out to feed his soda addiction. A couple of games later we all headed to our rooms to rest up for Venice.