Pittsburgh to Milan

We started our trip with a 2+ hour delay out of Pittsburgh causing us to miss our connection in London. Jeff got us on the next flight out of London into Milan. While in the air the pilot told us that we had been circling the airport but couldn't land because of storms. We used all of the reserve fuel so we had to land at another airport about an hour's drive away. When we landed the pilot informed us that he had to hear from Heathrow (London airport) on how to proceed. We ended up sitting on the plane for about two hours. During that time they allowed a mom and child to leave on a medical emergency - she was okay. The rest of us just waited until they refueled and got directions from Heathrow to fly back to Milan. The machines at customs were not working well so it took time to get through there and then wait for luggage. We then rode the Metro and the Airbnb host met us at the Metro and walked us to the room. We appreciated that as it was now about 10:15pm local time, 4:15pm Pittsburgh time. We had left our house at 9:00pm so we were traveling for about 19 hours. We found a pizza place that was still open and had dinner.

The next morning we had tickets to tour the Duomo, the Milan Cathedral. We started on the outside where you could view the many spires, statues and gargoyles. The church started being built in the 1300's and was finished in 1965. However, much of the marble is soft and it is under construction to replace eroded parts of the building. From the rooftops, we had great views of the city, both old buildings and some new, very contemporary looking buildings. Moving inside, the church is very large but much simpler and not as impressive on the inside. There are many rooms with statues and paintings. When they started construction of a subway originally planned to go under the church, they found archeological evidence of a church from around 300A.D. Both St Ambrose and St Augustine were baptized here.

Afterwards we met a former employee of Jeff's, Jennifer. She worked for him when she lived in El Salvador and has since moved to the Milan area. She also had her four year old son, Lorenzo, with her. We enjoyed a traditional Italian lunch and then walked the shopping district of Milan. Milan is a fashion district with many high end stores so we just did a lot of window shopping and talking. After leaving them, Jeff and I enjoyed some gelato and headed to our room for a rest.

In the evening we went to a rooftop wine bar where we enjoyed wine and cicchettis (tapas), followed by a good night's sleep!Read more