Extraordinary Adventure 2018 Day 4: Zig and Zag
I realized when I started reading back on previous trips that I spend a lot of time at the beginning of trips talking about jet lag. Rightfully so, it usually takes us three or four days to fully adjust. For example, this morning I woke up at 2 AM (when we went to bed at 11 PM) and couldn't fall back asleep. Luckily with some caffeine and a beautiful city, we ended up still having an incredible day even with little sleep.
We left our hotel room at around 9 AM to the metro to go on our first tour of the trip, a city highlight tour aboard a Segway. When we booked the tour we were told it could be with a group as large as 15-people. When we arrived there were only three Segway's, one for Jenn and I and one for the tour guide Alberto. Jenn was feeling a little nervous getting back on a Segway (after our tour in Prague in 2016) so we told the tour guide that we hadn't ridden one before. We spent five minutes "practicing" on a Segway before we were off.
For the next three hours, we were riding around the beautiful city of Milan seeing the sights, enjoying a ton of history and interesting insights on the city of Milan as we went. Tours really come down to two things, the city you're in, and the tour guide you have. We lucked out on both fronts. We took a morning tour and were able to see a lot of Milan before the city really woke up. The tour took us to the Sforza Castle, the Duomo, and several other beautiful sights along the way. It was a tad on the cold side (so much for the 90-degree weather we were expecting) and so by the time the tour finished three hours later we were both were ready for something to warm us up.
Based on our great tour guides recommendation we went to lunch around the corner from the tours ending spot at Osteria Di Brera, a small cafe that was great. I started off with a glass of white wine and Jenn had a cappuccino (to warm up). We started off with a trio of bruschetta. Each had great flavor and fortunately Jenn took the mushroom one, I ate the one with tomatoes, and we split the egg omelet one. For our entree's Jenn went with the spaghetti carbonara and I had the lobster linguine. Both were very fresh pasta, and both had clean plates by the time we finished.
With our bodies warmed up, the sun out, we continued on our day. The cafe we ate at was near another great shopping area in Milan so we were back on the hunt. We stopped at the United Colors of Benetton where Jenn got a beautiful blazer. And by the time we finishing up there our tickets to go into the Duomo were ready so we walked to the Duomo and skipped the line with our fast track tickets. After riding the elevator up we were able to walk around the Duomo where we took in the beautiful day in Milan before then taking the 75 stairs down to the cathedral itself. It was beautiful both inside and out and after touring every corner we were off.
At this point, it was a little after 4 PM and the lack of sleep was starting to sink in. We made our way back on the metro to our hotel where we spent the next four hours watching Netflix and taking a nap. At around 7:30 PM we went back out in search of dinner. Our first thought was to go back to the same place we had lunch yesterday (Osteria Italiana) but when we got there it was packed. We did a quick search on TripAdvisor and saw another restaurant with better reviews was only a few minutes away. We ended up going to Platina and I cannot even begin to describe how happy I am we did.
The place too was packed but they gave us a table for two and told us they had reservations for that table in a little over an hour. We said no problem, we wanted a quick meal as we were tired. We quickly ordered. Jenn got a shrimp with pesto pasta and I had a shrimp, zucchini, and curry pasta. I adored my pasta. Without any hyperbole, it was one of the best pasta dishes I've ever had. It was such an interesting mix of flavors, I wanted to order a second helping. Before finishing the meal we ended with a delightful tiramisu.
We made the fifteen-minute walk back to our hotel before turning it in seconds after we made it into the hotel room. It was a busy day today in Milan but we had such a great time taking in the beautiful sights, enjoying great shopping and even better food. Tomorrow's our last full day in Italy and I have a feeling we're going to soak up every second of it.
