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| Glamour at McDonald's |
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| Cathedral in Milan |
This blog began as Adventures with C & S when Susan and Cheryl took off for two weeks in Provence & Tuscany. Now it is being continued with any further adventures either of us may experience.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Late additions
We were unable to get pictures posted as we were traveling by plane, train and automobiles yesterday so here are some sights in Milan. Susan may have more to add as my camera battery dies before I did!
Everything beyond the main center of Milan was not much to look at but the people were. Everyone looks great and Fashion Week was to beging the day after we left.
This was taken on the roof of the Cathedral in the previous picture.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The end of the adventure...
Tuesday 9/21: We took a train from Florence to Milano, Tuesday morning. The trip was uneventful and we arrived in Milano at about 10:30. We have now seen the ugliest train station in the world. It is huge and ornate and totally tasteless. It was built by Mussolini in the thirties. It is pretty efficient. They say the one thing he accomplished was getting the trains to run on-time!
We took a taxi to the hotel, a Sheraton. After checking in, we went to the central city and had lunch in the most amazing McDonalds. It had electronic kiosks for ordering and paying and a very sophisticated modern decor. The cheeseburger had an oregano bun and mozzarella cheese. Not bad...
After lunch we visited the Duomo which is huge and very ornate. We took the elevator to the roof and enjoyed the view.
Later we had espresso and tiramasu on the roof of the Rinascente department store. We spend some time shopping, and saw the preparations for Fashion Week, which starts tomorrow.
We had room service and went to bed!
Wednesday, 9/22: we awoke at 5:30 and took taxi and train to the airport. With some confusion we managed to check-in, get our Value Added tax refunded, spend the rest of Euros in the duty free shop, eat breakfast and make our plane. We are somewhere over the North Atlantic at the moment. We are scheduled to arrive in Newark at 1:30 Eastern and Cleveland around 5:00.
The trip was pretty problem free. No strikes or weather anomalies! I hope it wasn't too boring for those,of you who followed the blog.
Thanks for watching.
Cheryl & Susan
P.S. I will post some Milano pictures, later.
Sent from my iPad
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday update
Monday, 9/20: Monday we took the train for Cortona. The train only went as far as Camucia. We had to take a bus to to Cortona. This turned out to be an event since the train station was closed and we had to find a Tobacco shop that sold bus tickets. Then we had to find the correct bus stop. Eventually we made It to Cortona, and it was worth the trip. We can understand why Frances Mayes fell in love with it and bought Bramasole.
After a day in Cortona we spent our last night in Florence. We had a nice dinner, packed and went to bed.
We are now on our way to Milan. We leave for home tomorrow morning!
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Monday, September 20, 2010
Sunday update
Susnday, 9/19: After many days of major activity we decided to take it easy today. We had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we went shopping at Rinascente, we had espresso at the rooftop cafe. Nice view. See pictures.
We also saw Michelangelo's chapel at San Lorenzo. We had lunch at Kate's favorite restaurant in the San Lorenzo Market. Later we went to the Leonardo Da Vinci museum where we played with models of many of his inventions.
We stopped for espresso and dessert at a cafe before walking Accross the Ponte Vecchio and along the river. When we returned to the hotel we found a bottle of wine and a card wishing me a happy birthday. We enjoyed that and some other goodies on our patio, before going out for pizza which we ate in our room.
Today, Tuesday, we are off to Cortona.
Sent from my iPad
Sunday, September 19, 2010
I said bidet sir!
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF4RFFuUmew&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Sent from my iPad
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Day Trip to Assissi
Saturday September 18
Back to the train station early this morning to go to Asissi, the birthplace of St. Francis who founded the Franciscan order. The town is small and confusing (to us) but very beautiful.
* A castle with a bar that sells chicken potato chips. Yummy!
There was a rain shower while we were in Assissi but it was no problem as we dropped in to a charming little restaurant for lunch and by the time we finished the rain was gone. Susan had pasta with truffle sauce and Cheryl had
chicken caccitore. Very Italian. When we go back to Florence we made a change of pace and headed to a Chinese
restaurant.
Back to the train station early this morning to go to Asissi, the birthplace of St. Francis who founded the Franciscan order. The town is small and confusing (to us) but very beautiful.
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| View of Assissi from Rocco Maggiore* |
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| We loaded up at this shop |
chicken caccitore. Very Italian. When we go back to Florence we made a change of pace and headed to a Chinese
restaurant.
Friday, September 17, 2010
First full day in Firenze
We then spent a good part of the day perusing all the fabulous shop and lunching between the Accademia, the Duomo and our hotel. Dropped a few things at the hotel before heading for some gelato and the Boboli Gardens.
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| View of the Duomo from Boboli Gardens |
We made it back to the hotel for a comlimentary"happy hour" where we chatted with two couples from Japan and Vancouver. We then ate Pizza nearby and an early night. We are back on a train for a day trip to Assissi tomorrow.
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| Boboli Gardens |
Thursday in Cinque Terre
Thursday, Sept. 16
We started the day in a rain which meant we had to drag along jackets and umbrellas. Walked by the beach which was pretty much left to the waves and could not take the boat I would have liked. A stroll turned into a hike when we got on the trail to the next town and found it too daunting AND we had not bought a pass. We did a turn around and didn't get busted.
We took the "milk train" to Vernazza for lunch where we were served by a cranky olf Italian who saw our book ans said he'd known Rick Steves for 30 years. Our 10 minute train ride back turned lengthy when the train was delayed for one full hour causing a rush up the hill to get our luggage and a taxi back to the station for another train ride to Florence (Firenze).
This train was not so nice and Susan claimed the last passengers were livestock of some sort!
We arrived in Firenze at about 8 PM and are very pleased with the Hotel Davanzati where we will be for the next 5 nights.
We started the day in a rain which meant we had to drag along jackets and umbrellas. Walked by the beach which was pretty much left to the waves and could not take the boat I would have liked. A stroll turned into a hike when we got on the trail to the next town and found it too daunting AND we had not bought a pass. We did a turn around and didn't get busted.
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| Monterosso al Mare |
We took the "milk train" to Vernazza for lunch where we were served by a cranky olf Italian who saw our book ans said he'd known Rick Steves for 30 years. Our 10 minute train ride back turned lengthy when the train was delayed for one full hour causing a rush up the hill to get our luggage and a taxi back to the station for another train ride to Florence (Firenze).
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| Vernazza |
This train was not so nice and Susan claimed the last passengers were livestock of some sort!
We arrived in Firenze at about 8 PM and are very pleased with the Hotel Davanzati where we will be for the next 5 nights.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The rest of Wednesday
Wednesday, 9/15: The rest of our journey went fairly well. We met a a woman on the train who manages all of the Stuart Weissman stores, worldwide. She is American so was anxious to chat. She lives in Milano. She showed us the catalog of next seasons shoes.
We arrived in Monterosso al Mare at about seven, went to our hotel which is beautiful. We a nice dinner in an outside cafe. I had seafood ravioli (see photo). While we were eating a catholic procession went by. Must be some sort of saint's day. I think the whole town was in the procession. There was even a band.
Today we are going to check out the five towns (Cinque Terre).
Sent from my iPad
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