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We’ve made our way to the penultimate stop on the Memento Mori World Tour – Milan, Italy.  Our first three days have included a little sightseeing, normal everyday living stuff around the apartment, and the first of two shows here.  We made our way here by train from Torino – took just a couple of hours.  The Torino train station (at least the Port Nuova one) was very nice – quite a few restaurants and we each grabbed small sandwiches to take with us on the train ride.  Upon arrival in Milano Centrale, we navigated through the station and took the metro to the stop nearest our apartment.  It’s about a 20-minute walk and we are right by the concert venue – the Milano Forum.  Funny little memory – while we walked to the apartment, we passed the Forum where Depeche will play tomorrow night.  People were lining up and I had to find out why.  There was actually a show tonight and I was asking who was playing and the girl at the front told me Jezz and The Ruler.  Say that quickly.  I could not understand who she was saying and she said it was an American singer.  Then I caught sight of someone’s scarf and saw the name Jason on it.  The light bulb went off and it was Jason Derulo.  We had a good laugh.  I mean if you say Jezz and The Ruler fast and sort of with an Italian accent, you can see why I wasn’t immediately thinking of Jason Derulo.

I had read that morning that there was a free concert of some sort at the Teatr alla Scala (quite a famous venue given that composers like Verdi and Puccini presented operas there) on the evening of our arrival.  We decided to go check it out and upon arrival, learned that there was not a free concert – more of a conference with someone talking about operas.  When I went back to the web site, the event I had read about that morning was gone.  The upshot was that we were right by the Duomo and Sandy calls that one of the most impressive buildings she has ever seen.  It is stunning.  We were here for our honeymoon and did the terraces on top of the duomo, so we did not plan to do that this time.  We considered going inside again but ticket sales were closed by the time we got there.  Every detail of the cathedral is spectacular.  It took nearly six hundred years to build.

We learned that the most important two things we needed to eat while we are here are Cotoletta alla Milanese, which is one of the oldest traditional dishes – mentioned in a document from the year 1148.  The dish is a veal cutlet breaded and very similar to the more well-known schnitzel from Vienna.  It is typically served with the bone in it.  Thumbs up for this one.  The second item is Risotto alla Milanese – simply, rice, onion, butter, parmesan cheese, and saffron.  The saffron gives it the yellow color.  Ours was served with a small cut of ossobuco.  Again, thumbs up.  We also had a salad and grilled vegetables. The restaurant was L’ Antica Milano.  After having a hard time finding what we wanted to try in Torino, it was nice to look at just about every menu for the places we were interested in and find both dishes available.  We were in a tourist center, but even when we looked later at restaurants out and about, the dishes and prices were pretty comparable.

After dinner, we wandered through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (he’s a former king of Italy and very honored all over the country with buildings, monuments, roads, etc.).  This galleria is everything you’d expect from the highest end shops in one of the world’s fashion centers.  It was fun seeing the window displays and looking at the prices – I think there was a pair of pants for around $4900 and I guess other than the label, there wasn’t anything all that unique about them.  I can’t remember if they were Gucci, Prada, or Louis Vuitton but I think one of those.  The Swarovski store must have taken weeks to build out – every single item was displayed on its own in small display cases that made up the walls of the store.

The initial thought of Milan (at least for the area we spent tonight in) was that it gave both of us very much a Manhattan feel – just without the skyscrapers.  We stopped by a Carrefour market on the way home to grab some cereal and milk for the days while we are here (that is the most common store we have been going to so far on the trip), then found a little gelateria to finally get some gelato – delicious, and made our way home to catch up on some TV from home.  We’re behind on one of the America’s Got Talent shows so we have been watching that.

Thursday was a concert day and the weather was just plain wet and cold.  The host at our Airbnb is the sweetest.  He is a 78-year-old gentlemen who is newer at hosting.  He speaks zero English so we are giving Google Translate plenty of exercise.  Anyway, he messaged us that because of the rain, he would be happy to drive us to the mall, which is about a 30-minute walk.  We took him up on it because we planned to go there anyway to fill up on groceries.  This particular market (Carrefour again) is maybe the largest grocery store we have been in.  It’s sort of like a Super Target, but geared more toward groceries – with still plenty of household goods.  It took us about an hour to get through what we wanted to buy and just what we wanted to see.  We then messaged Orlando and he came right back to get us.  So nice.

When we got back to the apartment, Sandy made Greek salads for us and then she went right back to work and started making spinach lasagna that is going to last three full meals.  She makes really good lasagna at home, but she was nervous here because of course, you’re working with slightly different ingredients and you don’t have a fully stocked spice rack – some creativity has to go into it.  I should have taken a picture of it before we cut into it, but it is every bit as good as any of the meals we have had out so far.  And we get to have it two more times!

Sandy skipped the show tonight but we walked together to the venue.  It’s only about a 15-minute walk.  I watched the show from the left house side of the mixing desk.  It was more crowded than I prefer but the crowd was very good.  For some of our friends, they thought it was one of the best shows of the tour – I thought it was a very good show, but it’s not necessarily in my top ten.  That’s more related to feeling so crowded than anything else.  The band – top form as usual.  Dave greeted Milan with a “Ciao, Milano” instead of his typical, “Good evening, whatever city I am in.”

Today was a planned sightseeing day – starting with a Starbucks stop.  Got some reading done there and then we walked past the church where Da Vinci’s Last Supper is painted.  You have to get tickets months in advance or pay crazy marked up fees, so we skipped it.  When we are back in Italy for true sightseeing/living reasons (meaning not on a Depeche tour), we’ll likely try to plan for that more in advance.  From there, we walked through Parco Sempione (one of the main city parks in the center).  The two highlights were the Bridge of The Little Mermaids – where we kissed each other to solidify that we will never betray each other – and the Arch of Peace, built under the direction of Napoleon.  The road (Corso Sempione) leads over the Alps and on to Paris. 

Next up was the Navigli neighborhood and along the walk, we stopped into a café for a snack and had Arancini – these are rice balls and ours were filled with tomato sauce and peas and they are deep fried.  The lady at the café said they were her favorite so how could we pass them up?  We liked them a lot and would eat them again.

Navigli is a charming little neighborhood situated between two canals.  One of the canals is definitely busier than the other as it is lined on both sides with many shops and restaurants. 

We met Manuel and Tina for an early dinner at Rossopomodoro.  This is a chain of restaurants with very good food.  We first ate at one of these in Bologna last summer.  Today, we were too early for any pasta, so Sandy and I shared a starter sampler with grilled octopus, meatballs, a version of bruschetta, salami and cheese croquettes and bread with olive oil.  As usual, getting to spend time with friends while we are all on tour is a highlight.  After we ate, we meandered through the neighborhood and then took the metro back to our own little neighborhood.  We’re about a 20- to 25-minute metro ride into the city center.  We finished up a great day by finally taking the time to watch the movie Napoleon from last year.  It was an ok movie, but we really wanted to watch it when we have seen so much of where he spent time during his campaigns.