Friday Downtown

After shopping we headed into town to start seeing the sights. First stop was going through the Galleria to find our gelato! For the first time I noticed the nautical details in some of the mosaics.



I made Miranda the traditional spin, she did a good job on it!



The Louis Vuitton store has arrows in the window displays, they are pretty cool! Miranda loved them...

Miranda's Visit

Miranda arrived late Thursday night. Really late! Poor thing, her flight was three hours late. She just made the last train from the airport!

In preparation for her visit I bought some lovely fresh groceries at the street market. Artichokes, skinny asparagus, and Italian melons. All of these were really good.



In the morning on Friday we walked around my neighborhood, and for the first time we saw these lizards. Later this weekend we just kept seeing them!



And then we went shopping at Penny Market to get a little more stocked up on food for the weekend. I wanted Miranda to get to pick out some of our treats for the weekend! Even if Penny Market is not the most amazing store, it has lots of good stuff.

Nuns!

One last photo from Esther and Tom's visit... We saw nuns at Castello Sforzesco!

Duomo Roof

One of the highlights of Esther and Tom's visit was going up to the Duomo roof. We took the elevator, at my insistence. Apparently they walked at all the other major sights, like St. Peter's.



Now, the Duomo is huge, and of course, the roof is huge. The cool part is the tiny details, though. Everything is decorated and different. There are saints all over, there are plant motifs everywhere. These satyrs were over one of the doorways on the roof walkways.



Random monsters and creatures show up everywhere. And seriously, no two things are alike. The highest level of the roof affords a good view of the city, and some great cute couple photo ops.



Now, I hope I have time to do some posting this weekend, but my friend Miranda is coming for a visit, so I will probably by quite busy! But, this means more exciting sights photos next week!

Foods with E & T

When Esther and Tom were here, we did do a lot of eating! Over at the Duomo area, we had panzerotti at Luini's, and gelato at Cioccolati Italiani, where they put liquid chocolate in the bottom of the cones... Yum.



On our way to Navigli, we walked past a Picard! I didn't know we had these in Milan! It's a frozen food chain, basically a small market where everything is frozen. The Italian version seemed to have more fish and meat cuts than the French version, which had more prepared meals.



Dinner was in Navigli at Pizzeria La Tradizionale, which had been recommended in the guides.



Tom and I both had the porcini pizza, and it was delicious!

Primo Maggio

Yesterday was May 1st, Labor Day here in Europe. The weather was rough and a lot of things were closed, so I ended up spending most of the day relaxing. The highlight was watching the Roma Labor Day concert on Rai 3. This is a huge outdoor concert in one of the piazzas in Rome, my friend said that over 100,000 people attend, usually. I didn't end up watching the whole thing, but I got a good sampling. A few bands and singers got multi-song sets, while a few came in for numbers peppered throughout the evening. Many of the one-off songs were classic rock songs (Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin etc.) backed by the Rome symphony. The maestro plays a mean harmonica when needed! Several singers from the more popular bands featured got in one of these symphony songs separate from their set. The favorites for me were Subsonica and, even more, Caparezza. Caparezza was hilarious! I wish I understood his lyrics more! From what I get, his songs are a mix of political commentary and crazy pop culture references.



This one above is the number he opened his set with, "I am your heretical dream" is the title, essentially. He had lots of different awesome props and costumes for his stage crew. Based on online popularity, I think this is the biggest track from his most recent album:



I am pretty sure it's a Berlusconi dig. As a final note, Caparezza means "crazy hair".

At the Duomo

Our first stop Saturday morning was to tour the inside of the Duomo. I guess I always go during mass times, when they have the center roped off, so it was cool for me to be able to take pictures up the central aisle and of the altar in general.



We took a walk all around the interior, taking a good look at the stained glass.



There's this statue of a saint, which is a pretty striking statue. I think it's possibly Saint Bartholomew, who was skinned alive? The statue is perfectly lit, too.



We headed down to the crypt, to see the relics of the saints.