Atahotel Ripamonti Due Milan

... and able to do anything until the exhaustion of my two weeks prior caught up with me. <br><br>Even though I was in awe of Cinque Terre, I found it strange on my hike how many times I<br>had to remind myself to look at the view, to take it in. I found myself several times just staring at the ground. Albeit I was concerned of my footing on the ridiculously narrow paths and steep steps I was constantly looking at my feet, in encouragement perhaps?, or ...

... an express train into Milan, and as we're zipping through the countryside the man sitting across from me gets a phone call and proceeds to talk in English to whoever called him. I got excited and told him it was nice to hear English. We then spent the remainder of the trip talking, he's originally from England but has been living in Cape Town, is totally into sailboats and loves America. He was a nice old man. I got to Milan first ...

... Festival was set up outside the rear walls of the castle all of that week).<br><br><br><br><br>Wonderfully simple sidewalk lunch of crepes, and fresh fruit containers, not to mention the obligatory gelato!<br><br><br><br><br>Back to hotel by 2.30pm, with just enough time for a quick rum, before being collected (this time!) and whisked to the airport for our first main port of call....Palermo, Sicily!

... service company......and we waited....and waited....and called after-hours local numbers to no avail.....until after over an hour, we decided to take the much cheaper shuttle bus service to our hotel, where we arrived, completely exhausted around midnight! Collapsed for about 6 hours sleep in a horizontal position for the first time in ages!

... online well in advance. I chose the latter as I despise tour groups now. I reserved online two months in advance. Good thing as tickets were sold out. Only groups of 25 are allowed to see the fresco every 15 minutes, in order to preserve the fragile artwork. Leonardo used an experimental technique of oil on chalk instead of traditional Roman fresco techniques. Deterioration started soon after completion in the late 1400's ...

... Might as well View this photo. Ah McDonalds, is there no escaping these things? The first restaurant ...

After Istanbul and Rome... even Venice looked dull .. so what do you say about Milan! <br><br>Though we did go to see the famous Leonardo Da Vince's Last Supper. For the nerds likes me, let me tell you that the painting is not on a canvas but on the wall of the church (don't remember the name of the church) ... the experience was Wow... it almost felt that you were having dinner with Jesus and his group .. its costs about 25Euro per person ...

... they got one. They're Tim Cahill - Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Ibra. Swedish dude with a Serbian name, Inter's best player and one of the best in the business. He'd started well, but like a number of his team-mates, had faded as the game worn on. But there's a reason that this guy gets 6 million euro's a year to play football and I don't - he's goooood. Really good. 89th minute - Ibra skips around two Parma defenders, then the ...

... girl took a ride on the individual pony. Throughout the park, we observed many types of people enjoying the holiday. We also saw lots of runners--another sign that we were in a city rather than a tourist town. After the gardens, we headed over to the fashion district, which was still hopping in spite of the store closures. I snapped pictures of several chi-chi stores. We also saw the first of many cow sculptures that were scattered throughout the city (much ...

... As this person was kind of large, we did not think it appropriate (or polite) to stare long enough to figure it out. Somehow, we always end up in great parts of town. Upon trying to board our TWO person sleeper compartment (expensive, but so necessary), we discovered it already contained a family. A family that had the same numbers on their tickets as we did. After the conductor somehow ascertained that we had more right to the car, we busied ourselves with exploring ...