Milan, Italy February 17-20, 2011

After a business trip to Parma, Italy to check out the perfume bottle-making industry at a couple of glass factories, Pat and I spent a lovely weekend in Milan! We had last been there in the 1990's and what a difference we noted since then! The Duomo had been totally cleaned up...who knew it was really "white"?!? It literally "glowed in the dark"! The streets were clean, busy and there were lots of tourists, even in the middle of winter! We stayed at the very lovely and central Hotel Spadari, and walked all over the area: http://www.spadarihotel.com/eng/home.html. We had some lovely meals, enjoyed great Italian cheeses, wines and coffee and did a little sightseeing as well!

The famous Duomo (Cathedral) in the sunshine














Inside the Duomo














Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II...found a wonderful glove shop here and went a little crazy!














Inside the Galeria



















Via Spadari outside out hotel



















Windows of Peck's, a wonderful delicatessen, restaurant, wine bar, etc. right next door to our hotel!














The best Parmesan ever at ~29.00 Euros/kg














A highlight was a tour of La Scala Opera House-below is one of the old posters which line the staircase up to the museum.



















The Pinocateca Ambrosiana, located close to our hotel. The adjoining Biblioteca Ambrosiana, houses Da Vinci’s Codice Atlantico. About 1200 pages of his notes, drawings, ideas are in this building shown about 30 pages at a time! Pretty impressive viewing some ~500 years later!














The Courtyard at the Pinocateca














Around the corner from the recently restored (1977-1999) "Last Supper, or "Cenacolo" in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Grazie. We had a quiet 15-20 minutes to gaze in awe at this masterpiece on a timed entrance ticket obtained for us by our hotel. Amazing...



















The two restaurants where we enjoyed dinners were:
-L'Osteria di Brere on Via Fiori Chiari, 8
-La Dolce Vita on Via Bergamini 11

We thoroughly enjoyed our getaway weekend to Milan and hope to visit again sometime!
Hasta luego...