The company I work for has sold a machine to a customer in Milano and I and three of my colleagues have gone there to install it. We landed around noon on Sunday, and after picking up our bags and getting to the hotel, we had a few hours to see the city. We spent them in the vicinity of the city’s main tourist attraction, Duomo di Milano, or Milan Cathedral. The cathedral is very easy to reach, just take the subway to the Duomo station. The Piazza in front was full of tourists milling about, taking photos and such, together with a large amount of pigeons flying about. Me and my colleagues joined the fray and got a good amount of photos but outside and inside. If your not much into churches, the Cathedral is perhaps not the most fun place to  visit but it’s very impressive with it’s huge size and wealth of carvings and stained glass.

  • Duomo di Milano
  • Me (I should have brought some sun glasses), Cassy, Lina and Polo
  • Pigeons pretending to be part of a carving
  • The inside of the church is absolutely massive.
  • Another part of the church
  • Statue on the side of the main altar
  • One of many stained glass windows

Just next to the cathedral, also facing the piazza, is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world’s oldest shopping malls. It is actually more like an indoor street with some beautiful buildings lining the street, and a vaulted ironwork glass roof. It is occupied by some really high end brands like Louise Vuitton and Gucci, stores that I am not particularly interested in but I think the architecture of the place is well worth a look.

  • The entrance is almost as impressive as the cathedral next door
  • The inside is beautiful too

The paintings near the top of the central dome

  • The floor is also pretty good 
  • The roof of the central dome

We grabbed some Gelato in one of the shops then walked around looking at the architecture and the people (lots of Chinese tourists entering the luxury brand stores). After that we had dinner in a restaurant which was so so, nothing wrong with it but not good enough for me to memorize the name. After dinner we strolled around randomly a bit more  looking at people, before heading back to the hotel.

Statue of Leonardo da Vinci

A new fun sport: taking photos of my colleagues as they take photos of other stuff

The rest of the week will be spent on work and we will likely not have much time over for tourism. Come the weekend however I will take some vacation and see some more of the country. I have been here before (thanks mom and dad) but it’s a long time ago and I look forward to seeing more of it Italy as a grown up.