day 5: milano/milan

this was the day we took the longest train ride during our stay in italy. guess how many hours?? 4 hours on intercity train!! my mistake. in the morning when i checked the train ticket in venice, only did i realise that the station was mestre and not santa lucia on the island. it was already too late to go to mestre so i had to change to another later train. the express train i booked would bring us to milan in 2 hours and 30 mins. but the slow train we were on took 4 hours because it stopped at many cities. well, i really had a lot of experience on trains here in italy. i think i took all sorts of trains, from regional to intercity and to express. well, this slow intercity we were on would stop operation on 15 december and would no longer exist. well, at least i had the experience to share.

when we reached milano centrale aunt's ex-worker waited for us there with his family. after checking in at hotel garda which was only 5 mins walk from the station, it was off to chinatown for a steamboat meal. yummy...they just ordered and ordered. we also had snails.

left: milano centrale and right, chinatown. chinatown is populated by mainland chinese from the north. it is their world here and in italy.
then we took a tram to duomo. subway and tram are their mode of transport here.

piazza duomo, the famous cathedral on the top left.

lucky us, the restoration work was already over and there was no more scaffolding to cover the beautiful features on the walls.

no photography is allowed, the sign posted outside that is. but everyone kept snapping away...so i joined the crowd. they checked our bags before we went in too.

shopping again around the piazza. italians can really shop.

it was the day we did the least walking in our trip. aaahh....subway back to the hotel, no problem making our own way back as i could read the subway routes.