Friday, September 7, 2007

Ric's Travel Journal : Milano

Since King Uh hit the 1st round of Milan reportage. I will share about mine too.

It was part of my travel in Italy. We were traveled from Firenze (Florence) to Siena and Bologna and later Milano (Milan).

Evening ride from Sienna to Milano in Toscano

We arrived in Bologna about 11pm with our backpack. Besides sitting at train station, we decided to talk a small walk to a nearby fortress. Yes! At night.


Is was a mini one and just enough to killed 30 minutes of our time and the next train to Milano will leave only at 4 am. Besides sitting in Mc Donald’s playing “What I like about you and what I think you should improve” relationship game. We can only wait.

To my amazed, most people will think it will be a empty train at 4 am. It was FULL.

To the extent that, we have no seats and have to sit on our back pack along the alley in the train.

We arrived in Milano close to 7 am. Through the high and low search of our 10 euro booked hostel, we accidentally bumped into a Malaysian uncle!! (I also bump into interesting guy when I travel) As the hostel open only after 10am, he actually invited us for a breakfast.


Early morning in Milano Train Station

This is the time I really learned about Italy from foreigner point of view, not as a tourist.

This is the time I really learned about Italy from foreigner point of view, not as a tourist.

He told me that the entire COOP you see everywhere in the country belong to the president!! He worked there as a kitchen helper for years, sharing with us sweet and bitter about life in other land. There are one part of the conversation really stroked my mind.

Me :” So uncle , when will you be leaving here and going back to Malaysia?”

Uncle :” Malaysia ? , don’t think so .”

Me : “ Why is that so ? Is that the earning here is better?”

Uncle : “Not really , I earn here and spend here. Is just that, even I go back, I also don’t know what to do and where to start again.”

These make me ponder. People use to say ‘The other side of the grass is always greener’ or Chinese says ‘Moon in foreign countries is always brighter than homeland’

No one can really justify that statement.It purely dependent of feeling, situation , chance and many other elements.

After unpack and we loitered in the city and found one funny thing.

We are in the heart of Milan and are not the public holiday. But it seems that is a rest day for all as you can see “Chuiso per ferie”

“Chuiso per ferie” signs had become a familiar sight everywhere we went. Then only we knew that we had come in the middle of Ferragosto, the Italian holiday season, which meant that a lot of places would be closed.

After asking around I found out most of the people went to a famous beach paradise, Rimini beach at west coast of Italy in the summer and our presents were exactly in that season. Suai lo

None the less, you still can find people here and there. Mainly belong to two groups. Old folks and tourists.

Since almost all the shop was closed. We went to Sforzesco Castle. But it located in the city center though.



The castle itself was boring interesting. I mean beside the stones and walls. The history is interesting, because Napoleon was once here.

A nice walk in the castle garden with lake was really you can’t imagine back home.Nice weather , relax and again Italy Gelato ice cream.


We leave the castle compound and moved on to the Duomo and the shopping mall,Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.



Songsu (Squire in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II)

Since King Uh covered the Duomo part. I will just show my pictures (with nice weather and clear blue sky) and clip during the prayer.

Now we were in the shopping mall of Milan, here you find , D& G,Prada,Gucci, A|X ,Diesel and many. I got nothing from those. What to do. Backpacker. Poor neh.

Here we found two interesting objects. One the floor mosaic in the mall ground with a Bull logo. What so special about it?

There is a curious custom in Milan, if you are passing through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, that you should spin around 3 times on the testicles of the bull mosaic found in the centre. Legend has it that this will bring you good luck!


The next was the exhibition of aerial view of Milano.


The cross on the right is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II ,where the finger pointed is teh Duomo

We only found out that the shopping mall building is a form from a cross like a design of a church.

At night, we were back to the castle garden as there was a folk festival there.

When I get old I wanna be like them!!. Jolly, active and passionate!!



What i regretted is not having to visit Leonardo's The Last Supper at Santa Maria Church.

Want to have a general view of Milano even before going?

Take the virtual tour here. Milano map

1 comment:

King Ung said...

My name is King Of Ung, not King of Uh!

As a fellower of Traveline crew, a well done report indeed!

Next time you shall lead the Commentary section.