Europe 2013 Day 11 & 12: Milan, Italy

DAY 11: 23 MAY 2013

We arrived at Milano Centrale around 3.20pm.

Like always, we proceeded to purchase a single metro ticket to get to the

nearest train station to our hostel.

However an Italian man, dressed shabbily, approached us at the ticket machine

and pressed the day pass option for us and insisted that we insert notes only.

As we were kind of shocked from his actions, we took a while to re-select the single ticket

option and insert the coins.

And there he came again, grabbing the coins from Amanda's hand, 

inserting them for us and finally, 'keeping' 2 euros for himself.

He even had the guts to show me the amount of coins he snatched from other

tourists just before taking off.

Everything happened too fast and we were just flabbergasted.

I was just so worried he pick-pocketed me during the whole incident as he stood

right next to me.

Although it kind of dampened our mood, I was just relieved that my valuables

were still intact and all we lost was 2 euros.

Furthermore when we returned to Milano Centrale two days later, a few groups of 

female beggars were harrassing the tourists at the machines.

I thought that guy was bad.

This was even worse.

After ten minutes walk, we arrived our hostel, Hostel Galla.

There is no elevator at the hostel, and so we had to drag the luggage up three floors.

Like Venice, there was a city tax of 1 euro per night.

After placing our luggage down, we went to the shopping street,

Corso Beuno Aires for some shopping.

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DAY 12: 24 MAY 2013

The day started early as we had pre-booked Last Supper tickets at 10.45am 

online three months ago.

That particular day was just wet and cold.

The temperature that day went as low as 8 degrees, and it just ruined

our whole holiday mood.

We were not allowed to take any photographs inside the museum.

Also, amidst the tight security, we were only given fifteen minutes to admire

the Last Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, and a different painting.

Both paintings adopted different brush techniques, and thus, I prefer the technique

Da Vinci used.

Right after viewing the Last Supper, we walked towards the direction of the

Duomo in Milan, the third largest duomo in the world.

The Duomo

Statue of Vittorio Emanuele II

Painted glass inside the Duomo

The visit inside the Duomo was nice, but having visited so many churches during

the past week, made everything seem ordinary now.

Upon exiting the Duomo, we walked around Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which was

just situated next to the Duomo.

We spotted tourists spinning on a bull's balls on the floor.

Hilarious enough, the three of us tried to replicate the same actions without

knowing the reasons behind it.

Hours later, we googled and found out that the designer of this gallery fell to his

death from a scaffolding just weeks before his project completed.

In order to ward off such bad luck, you will have to:

1. Place your heel firmly into the bull's groin

2. Turn backwards three times.

Right after this, we headed back to our hostel and took a nap.

We wanted to visit the shopping street again after the nap.

However, all three of us overslept and we only had an hour left till the shops close.

Therefore, the rest of the day was spent cooking dinner and recuperating for

our remaining travelling days.