Italy - Milan (4 Jul 2011)

After a 12 hr flight during which I watched 2.5 movies (Kungfu Panda was hilarious, Little Red Riding Hood had a so-so plot, Great Big World had me thinking that people in the past are happier as they content themselves with simple pleasures in life sans computers) and survived a neighbour with not-so-pleasant breath, we finally touched down at about 8am. 

My first impression of Milan was the cool toilet knobs!  Instead of the typical round knobs that you turn clockwise-anti clockwise, or those practical latches that move left and right, the toilet knobs at Milan airport had me pondering for a couple of seconds how to exactly use them - and this is not insignificant for someone who has been using toilets for so many years.

Milan's door knobs are round but one presses on the rectangular mechanism on top of the knob to open-close the door. And there is a tiny round button just below the knob that locks the door. I would be baffled at this interesting mechanism if not for instructions pasted on the toilet door.

The door knobs certainly left me with a good first impression - even ubiquitous items like this has a style unique to city of fashion. 

It was an hour's bus ride and then a half-hour queue at the train station to purchase our tickets for the next day. There were men dressed in black T-shirts and jeans that were helping people at self-service ticket stations or directing people towards certain ticketing counters.  One of them approached us but we declined his offer of service.  Still can't figure out whom these men are, my best guess is that they are targeting confused tourists and assisting them in their ticket purchase for a small fee - a self-determined job creation of sorts.  After the long queue at the train station, we got on a cab to head towards our hotel - Sheraton Diana Majestic Milano. 

The hotel lobby was simple and modern, but from the ancient-looking lift which can fit a maximum of 5 people, it seems like the hotel was last refurbished in the early 1980s. We were upgraded to a junior suite, but the layout and design of the room was nothing to shout about.  The room is furnished with wooden furniture decorated with grey-white table tops and golden knobs. The curtains are vertical stripes of gold and warm yellow hues, perfectly matched to the warm light exuding from the table lamps with gold trimmings and the yellow sofas. The most outstanding furniture in the room would be the gold chandelier with fake candles. The toilet has simple white tiles and brown marble countertop at the sink area. Right above the double sinks is a mirror with tarnished gold patterned trimmings.

The hotel looks like it had a glorious past - the furnishing would be considered classy maybe twenty years ago.  While I love retro designs, the only designs I would replicate from the hotel (if I had to) would be the grey-white marble countertops and pure white bedsheets.  But what is impressive is the maintenance of the furniture. Despite the outdated designs, every furniture piece is well maintained. All in all, the room is spacious, simple and clean - which is all I ask of a hotel room. 

We spent the afternoon walking around the city centre.  Lunch was a sandwich take-away from a sandwich shop with a relatively long queue (the best gauge for decent food at reasonable prices) and we also visited the Domo. I vaguely recall visiting the Duomo during my post-graduate trip to Europe, and feeling unimpressed with the cathedral - cos I had been awestruck by Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and every subsequent piece of architecture I saw paled in comparison.  But that was ten years ago.

Fast track ten years later, I am back at the same place but with my hubby - who would have thought :) And I was pretty impressed with the intricate carvings at the Duomo. It is hard to imagine how this piece of elaborate architecture, which is completely covered by intricate hand carvings, could be built by hand 500 years ago.  It must have required a tremendous amount of hard work, peserverance and patience. The designer must have taken great pride in his design. 

After visiting Duomo, we went window shopping. It is sales period in Milan and every store we passed had signs screaming Saldi (which means Sales in Italian).  Other than my one visit inside a Prada shop to check out my dream bag (no discount but it is about 30% cheaper than in Singapore and there is a tax refund of 12%), the rest of the window shopping was pretty boring. We had a good stroll though - the weather was almost perfect - the sun was shining strongly but the cool air kept us from pespiring. We also found a great gelato shop and indulged in one of the best gelato we have ever tasted.  We strolled a bit more afterwards to work off the calories and headed towards the canal area which was a disappointment. A thinks the area may look livelier at night when the restaurants and bars are open.

After that we zipped back to the hotel via the metro. The memorable parts of the metro ride were the screeches when the non-air-conditioned train started moving (and how everyone was oblivious to the screeches), and the horizontal handles that I had to stretch upwards to hold onto. 

As A was sniffing a bit, we went to the supermarket to get some water and fruits - which were considerably cheap - 3.5 Euros for 2 1.5 litres of water and 6 golden kiwis. After that, we were back to the hotel to rest and our intended 1.5 hour nap turned into a 7 hour rest. We missed dinner as a result and had to order room service - a whopping 17 Euros for a chicken sandwich. But guess that is the premium we pay for a hungry stomach at 12+am. 

Bedtime was about 3am for me as I spent the rest of my time blogging and waiting for my hair to dry. On a side note, the TV programmes in Milan are not worth watching - most of the programmes are in Italian except for a few news channel and a movie channel.