Italy - Days 7 & 8

Wednesday 5/26

We packed our bags for 2 nights away and headed to Milan. Chris had a meeting there the following day.

Amelia all ready to go:



The drive up was pretty amazing - heading out of Tuscany towards the Alps.

View of the mountains from our hotel room:



Once we got there, we took the metro into the main square of Milan:



Amelia really enjoyed the ride:



The Duomo in Milan -- the coolest building I saw on the whole trip:



Chris's artsy shot of Amelia in front of the Duomo:



Inside the magnificant Duomo:



The Galleria -- probably the most ornate shopping destination in the whole world:



Inside the Galleria:



We found our way to La Scala - a famous opera house - but it had already closed and we could barely sneak a peek into the theatre from the gift shop.

So we found a nice little restaurant for dinner.

Amelia enjoying her penne marinara:

Thursday 5/27

Chris got all dressed up for his meeting, and we all walked to the breakfast room together:

We wished him good luck, and Gampa, Amelia and I hopped in the car and headed towards Switzerland!

Going on a tip from our hotel, we got off the Autostrada at Como:

We took the back roads into Switzerland, to avoid a heavy charge on the Autostrada for passing into a new country. The route started in Como, Italy -- known here as the home of Lake Como, and George Clooney's Italian home.

Unfortunately, it started raining by this point, and so while Como is beautiful, it was sort of lacking in the experience.

View of the Lake, the rain:

Heading over the border into Switzerland:

Heading through Switzerland, toward Lugano:

Lugano -- not so beautiful in the rain:

We took a wrong turn (thanks GPS!) and headed up this beautiful hill:

At least the rain is starting to clear up:

Ah -- what a beautiful view of the foothills of the Alps:

And the beautiful view coming back down the hill:

And a really neat looking tunnel:

Lugano, after the rain stopped:

So... the story goes, due to our fear of not having the annual pass-into-Switzerland sticker on our car, we attempted to find our way to the Alps taking back roads. We thought we'd see them from Lugano, and had it been a nicer day, we probably would have seen them.

But we returned back to our hotel and could see them just fine from our balcony :)

Amelia and Gampa taking in the view before bedtime: