The Cathedral and Panini Injury
Post date: 13-Oct-2009 15:44:40
Colin and I visited the largest cathedral that we've ever been inside. Il Doumo is the 4th largest cathedral in the world. As we walked through the streets of Milan it appeared suddenly like the White Castle in Lord of the Rings. The white wash cathedral contains 135 spires (with a gold statue on top of one of them) and 2000 magnificent statues. Construction of the church began in 1386 and took 5 centuries to complete.
After walking through the cathedral and admiring its beauty,
we stopped for gelato (coconut, strawberry, cantelope, and pistachio) and then headed to Quadrillatero d'Oro to browse through the expensive shops. We visited Prada, Sergeo Rossi, Gucci, Louis Vutton, etc. It was quite amusing because as we admired the $500 euro shoes and $1000 euro dresses, Colin would ask "Anything you like?" I would say "No" and then we'd move onto the next store. It was funny because we acted as if none of the products were quite good enough or interesting enough for us when the contrary is true.
I can't visit Italy without talking about the food. Well okay, I personally can't visit anywhere or get through one day or hour (according to Colin) without thinking or talking about food. For our first Italian supper we had mushroom gnocchi (thick tubes of pasta made from potato) and shirmp. We also have been enjoying cannoli the Italian dessert that is stuffed with ricotta cheese and pistacchios. Of course we each drank half a litre of wine too. It was only 4.00 euros for half a litre of wine.
In Italy and Greece, I don't think an unripened tomato has ever been served. Each tomato is always at its reddest, seed squirting peak. We went for lunch at a highly recommended paninos restaurtant because they have a menu with 7 pages of different types of paninis. I had an Indian panini and it contained curry sauce, tons of chicken lunch meat, tomatoes and was sandwiched by brie cheese on the bottom and mozzarella on the top. There was also the bread, but there was more cheese than bread. The panini was heavily toasted and so large that it was impossible to take a bite of the entire sandwich from top to bottom. It took at least 2 sometimes 3 bites to work from the bottom to top of one area. Somewhere it between my savage enjoyment a piece of bread pierced my bottom lip. Colin's kind word to me were "Only you could manage to get injured by a panini." Yes, sometimes I am klutzy. To my knowledge, this is only the second time that I have been injured by food. The first time was when I swallowed a bone as a child and it scrapped my thorat a bit. Perhaps I should stick to the gelato.
You can see the rest of our pictures from Milan here: