Our breakfast, much like our bijou room (with the corners cut off the bed to save space), was pretty minimal and a tad disappointing if we’re honest – compared to the wonderful breakfast we had in Tirano. Poked into the hotel reception area, it soon became apparent the turnover of the makeshift dining room was way too slow to cope with the number of hungry hotel patrons.
In true British style, we made the best of a bad situation and were soon armed with long trousers in a bag for later and a guidebook of Milan en route to the first stop on our walking tour. Forty minutes later, we were at the start of our short walking tour which took in a famous orphanage, the Milan stock exchange and a number of notable buildings due to their architectural credentials. We found the sculpture outside the stock exchange the most baffling and wondered what had possessed the city authorities to have granted it planning permission. (Maybe they were stoned at the time, or maybe the chief planning officer had been sacked/early retired and saw this ‘veiled insult’ as a fitting leaving gift – I guess we’ll never know.)
Our mini walking tour ended at the cathedral square, but since that part of the city seemed almost as expensive as St Marks Square in Venice, we popped down the road for a spot of lunch (ham and cheese toastie and a glass of coke). Twenty minutes later it was time to walk the familiar path back to the cathedral, don our trousers and queue for the roof-top tour. Yes, you read that right we were headed up to the roof of the cathedral!
It was amazing and I enjoyed looking at the spires and decorations on the roof close up. When you sit and ponder how many pairs of hands contributed to just one spire, or one flying buttress, you begin to understand why the cathedral took so long to build despite so many people working on the project.
Our tour included access to the interior and an extensive audio guide which we collected and then worked our way around, listening to the commentary which explained the history of the item in question. As part of the project, they had a team of navvies building a waterway, so they could navigate the stone through a set of locks and into the basecamp for the building project which was only 100m from where the cathedral stands. (The waterway has long since been filled in and abandoned – probably another casualty to the railways or maybe the hose&cart/motorised van.)
The other thing on our list to see was the football stadium, so we rode the metro to the ground. On the way, we noticed a number of Guns’n’Roses T-Shirts but didn’t think much of it until we exited the metro station. The sheer number of people wearing T-Shirts or with tattoos made us wonder if we were heading to a gig. As we drew closer to the stadium and saw the number of food trucks and drink tents it became obvious our intuition was spot on and the official merch stall was the final confirmation we needed. Turning around we headed back to the subway because we knew it would be impossible to see the inside of the stadium with pre-gig sound checks and safety checks in progress.
On the way back we decided to hop off the metro a couple of stops before the cathedral and see a few more sights. This was the right thing to do as outside the station was the Castello and 1-acre park with the Arco Della Pace (Arch of Peace) beyond. As it is our last day here we decided to walk back to the hotel and grab some food on the way. A well-intended plan which wasn’t supported by the cafe and restaurant owners in this part of town. The majority of the outlets were closed. But we were saved by a pizza place just around the corner from the hotel, would have preferred a nice little pasta place but can’t complain about the pizza.