Back from Milan

Hello everybody! I've been back from Milan for a few days now, and I've finally got round to putting up some pics from the trip. Most of them taken by me and my brand new used canon eos 350D! I'm so pleased with my new toy, and my bf was also quite impressed by the picture quality. Alright, so here we go. We arrived in Milan late afternoon, checked in at the hotel and started to explore the city.

The first thing we wanted to see was the Sfortza Castle and the pretty fountain in front of it. At 5 o'clock when it got dark the castle lit up and there was music and a little light show.

There was a tram covered in lights driving around.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the shopping centre right outside the duomo, where all the fancy shops like Prada, Gucci etc were situated. But, everything was closed. Come on, it was new years eve! But yes really, only a few small and expensive looking restaurants were open.

The Duomo at night, with a large flower and light covered christmastree in front of it. By this time in the evening it was snowing wet snow and it was pretty cold aswell. The lack of open places to go made us return to the hotel for drinks at the bar and then bed. The thought of going back out there in the cold to see the fireworks, and then try to somehow get back to the hotel after the underground stopped running didn't appeal. So we fell asleep. No wonder, we did get up at 3 that morning...

The following day, after a breakfast consisting mainly of biscuits and tiny bits of white bread, we returned to the duomo to have a look inside. It was amazing, and huge, and full of details.

After seeing the inside we took a lift up and saw it from above, even more details and a pretty good view over the city as well.

Here I am, showing off my new glasses on top of the duomo.

The view from the side of the cathedral.

As all the shop were still closed, we went for a walk in the park. As you can see, it wasn't exactly a suntrip we were on.

I said hi to Napoleon.

And we had dinner in a fancy restaurant. And a fast food place or two, as I mentioned before, most places were closed. But I managed to fulfill my goals of eating a real italian pizza - made and served in italy, as well as a plate of real italian pasta.

The following night we got up at three, again, and caught a bus back to the airport. When we landed in Finland we had breakfast and spent the following 5 hours or so in the ideapark shopping centre outside tampere. I bought some earrings, socks and stockings, underwear from Gina Tricot, and from Eurokangas a piece of fake fur out of which I intend to make a muff to warm my hands in. Fur -both real and fake- seemed to be all the rage among the 90% of russian passengers who flew out to Milan on the same plane as us. Just in case you wondered.

All in all I'm very pleased with the trip, although Milan is probably much nicer in the summer and when places are open. But still, I got to fulfill my shopping desires back in ideapark, so I'm not complaining. I hope you've all had a good start to the new year!