I am writing my final holiday blog from my lounge back at home. The 25 hour flight has been survived and the clothes unpacked and even washed and the only thing left to complete is this blog. We arrived in Milan around 10 am after a three-hour train ride on the Milan express from Monterosso al Mare. (We also had the best coffee of the trip at the Monterosso train station – a very unlikely occurrence). We stood in a taxi line in Milan and inhaled a few more passive ciggies while watching the military and Carabinieri keeping a close eye on the comings and goings at Milan Central Station. It is a very grand building with thousands of people milling and it was the first time this trip that I became aware of tight security.
This was also present at the major tourist attraction in Milan – it’s very spectacular Duomo. It’s a little unnerving to see the soldiers in their army fatigues with big machine guns casually walking around the outside of this enormous architectural marvel.It took 600 years to complete and from the top of the roof one can only imagine the skill and bravery of the artisans who constructed this masterpiece.

Milan Duomo
If you are into shopping (I am not) then Milan is a great place to visit, but otherwise it is a big (very dirty) city with an airport which is 100 euro cab/limo drive away. So next time I would definitely not fly out of Milan. We did like the Brere district of Milan with its nice eating areas and we did the hop on/ hop off bus tour which cost 25 euros for two days per adult and you can utilise all three lines which cover three different areas of Milan, so by the end of the 3 day visit we felt we had ‘done’ Milan. The highlight of the Milan trip was the visit to La Scala – the opening night of Giselle.
  
La Scala from the outside- a tad ordinary, but once inside a true spectacle. These are my real photos from inside La Scala of the seating and the orchestra pit

The artists from Giselle taking a bow at the curtain call
As per usual when travelling, it is often the people you get talking to who make the trip more interesting. It is pretty tight seating at La Scala and it was only polite to say hello to the lady, whose lap I was almost sitting on. She had come to Milan for a three-day visit and to go to the opening night of Giselle from Belgium and she apologised for her ‘terrible’ English (which I thought was wonderful), but explained she was fluent in Lithuanian, French, German, Italian and Russian…..There are times when you feel very inadequate.
Just for your future reference, if you aren’t in the front row of each seating area (like a little cubby) then you cannot see anything. Bob had to stand for the whole 2 hour performance to see anything and we were in the front row. But hec, the seats only cost $350 for 2, seeing the show would have just been icing on the cake! Still again, it’s been done, the tick on the bucket list has occurred and no need to do that again.
The lead male ballet dancer Roberto Bolle was a real star in Milan and when he made his first appearance on stage there was a thrilled, audible gasp from all the ladies in the audience and wild applause and I too was truly gobsmacked at the fantastic sculptured definition of his gluts. We spend many hours in a day as physios pointing out the inadequacies of people’s gluts, and giving exercises to improve them, but Robert’s gluts were masterful and a true lesson in anatomy to say the least. To be honest I couldn’t stop staring…..
This trip has been wonderful, so very well-planned by Bob and a fabulous way to celebrate my 60th year on this planet. Travel is so important, if not only to make you realise how amazing Australia and our clean fresh air and beaches and cities and weather (cept perhaps Melbs in winter…) are. Until our next trip it’s back to pelvic floor blogging.