The Last Supper

 

Well friends, today was our last day adventuring in Italy. We have spent 19 days traveling, stayed in 7 apartments, and walked a whopping 218 miles. Yes. We. Did. Go us! We have asked each other what our favorite places have been, favorite meals, and favorite sights. I think we both agree that we liked a bit of each place because they all were so different. Neither of us really had a stand-out favorite. Brian did an amazing job planning this trip. I feel like a vacation princess just showing up for this well executed travel he put together for us. Thanks to my Brian for all of this. It was a dreamy way to celebrate 25 years married. 

Today was a mellowish day. We started the day with our usual brioche and coffee. I have enjoyed having cappuccinos in my life. I’m back to green tea soon.

After breakfast, we had the privilege of viewing da Vinci’s Last Supper. I really didn’t know what to expect from this visit because it is a work that I didn’t really read about ahead of time. The visit was strangely rushed. I get it. There are lots of visitors and they have to keep it moving along. It just felt really fast. Maybe 10 minutes of viewing. Brian and I sat on a bench in front of it while reading about it. Then all the sudden, they cleared us out. I took some photos and a video so we can read more and study the painting. There is so much history and myths about the meanings behind this da Vinci piece. The picture is grainy because the work is very old and the colors are quite muted. 

I always feel so lucky when I’m in the room with a classic work from a famous artist. I love to be in the presence of the spirit behind these works. These have survived wars and human destruction. This work was found under several layers of paint. It just amazes me. 

When we were quickly shuttled out of the viewing, I think we both felt a little bit confused about what to do next. We thought it was a museum visit so now we were free to roam. 

We ended up passing a huge Starbucks roastery and wanted to check out what Italy Starbucks was like. It was pretty good. They roast the coffee in the middle of the building and you can watch the beans fill the containers after being roasted. 

This building is Starbucks!

We went back to our place after our second breakfast for a quick stop. Probably for me to go to the bathroom. Again. 

Headed out for lunch and found a great place for a panini and a salad. This food was very very good. The salad was one of my favorite meals on this trip. Yes, I’m a sucker for a good roasted vegetable. 

Lunch finished- time for a nap. We headed back to do just that! Woke at 4:00 and made our way over to Navigli Canal. Walked through the park where the Sforzesco is. It was a nice walk in the park followed by a ride on the metro to the canal. There were lots of shops and restaurants up and down the canal. We were thinking about getting a snack, but I was still so full from lunch so we decided to go back to the apartment and head out for a later dinner. 

We decided to do dinner in the Brera area where we are staying. There are lots of restaurants with seating on the sidewalk. We found one with freshly made pasta and thought we would give it a try. Delicious.

We are all packed up and ready to wake up at 6 and make our way to to the airport. We have a long travel ahead of us. Milan-Frankfurt-Seattle-Oahu (land after last flight so we have to stay in airport hotel) then finally to Kauai. Traveling has always been important to Brian and me. It has been especially important to show the girls the big world outside of the small island they grew up on. There is so much to see when you take the leap and travel. This was a bucket list trip. I’m so happy for us and so proud of us for crossing something off the list. I’m sure our next big trip will be to visit Fiona when she studies abroad. For now, I’m super excited to be returning to the warmth of our home and to rejoin the summer adventures with our kids. Traveling as a married couple vs. traveling as parents has been very good for us. We laughed a lot. Talked a lot. We were able to focus a bit on what brought us together again. 

This wraps up another chapter of Godsill Away. If you followed along, thank you for reading. I love to share our wanderlust with you, but more importantly I love to have a collection of these memories for ourselves and for our kids. 

I hope this lit a fire under you to plan a trip. Go see the world or just another part of it than where you are from. There is so much living to do and travel really fills you up and reminds you to always live well and enjoy this life you have. 

Fashionable in Milan

 

Today was a travel day! We did some breakfast this morning before we checked out of our place and wandered around Rialto market a bit. It was super cute. Lots of fresh veggies and fish. I would love to make a weekly visit to it! The train travel was smooth today. Three hours went by so fast. 

Milan is very different from Venice. Back in the hustle and bustle of the city. Lots of fancy clothes, expensive bags, perfectly groomed brows, and lip filler. All the things Brian and I were looking for in our stay. Kidding. We arrived wearing our back packs and clearly are just passing through. 

Our place is super cute. Francesco met us here and gave us a tour. It’s really close to good restaurants and beautiful Sforzesco Castle which haven’t leaned much about yet. We walked over both in the day and at night to check it out.

Our first thing on the list today was lunch. We found a cute place just around the corner from us and got some paninis. I really needed some food. 

After lunch we headed over to the Duomo to tour around in the cathedral and museum. It was enormous. It’s one of the largest Catholic Churches in the world. It took 6 centuries to complete. Pictures can’t even do it justice. We started by walking on the roof and then went down inside. Pretty amazing. 

When Italy entered WWI, they removed the stained glass panels from the cathedral to keep them safe! 

It was really amazing to see how big it was and to learn about how it was built .The museum had a lot of beautiful sculptures and stained glass. I know they are boring to share, but these caught my eye. 

St Peter visiting St Agatha after being tortured and helping her to heal her amputated breasts. This disturbed me.

Stained glass was used to tell the religious stories to people who weren’t able to read. 

It was a really good visit to the Duomo followed by a walk through at the neighboring bougie mall, The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It’s the oldest shopping center in Milan.  

We did not go into any stores in there. Just did some people watching and window shopping as we passed through. We walked back to our place to take a short rest before leaving for dinner.

I’m now sitting up a bit passed midnight listening to the thunder and rain hitting the roof. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain tomorrow on our last day in Italy.  We will be viewing The Last Supper tomorrow. Seems fitting! 

Cicchetti and Vaparetto

Today we bought an all day pass for the water bus, or Vaporetto. It’s a great way to get around in a city with water roads. We have (we…ha…I should only credit Brian here) been getting everywhere using google maps. It’s usually about a 15-20 minute walk to where we want to go plus or minus the amount of time it takes for google to give the wrong information and to reset the map. This pass was going to help us get around a bit more efficiently and our feet would thank us.

I bet you can guess how we started our day today? 

Yep? A delicious brioche and a cappuccino! A nice Italian man told us today which pastry was his favorite so we ordered that. Today was a quick stand and eat so we could go buy our Vaparetto tickets and take a little trip before our Doge’s Palace Secret Itinerary tour. 

We were doing great on time this morning. We toured St Mark’s Basilica which’s was all kinds of beautiful. 

After we toured the church, we made a quick stop (on the boat) over to a cool little bookstore we had heard of. I loved it. They have a resident cat, but it was no where to be seen. 

The bookstore trip made us hungry for a small bite so Brian led us in the direction of a place where we could get some ciccheti. They are little toasts with delicious toppings. 

They were very good. My favorite was the pumpkin one with the flowers. We ate them quick and then made our way back to Doge’s Palace. Now here comes the Godsill part of this tour. We followed the directions on the email they sent to get to our meeting spot. No one was there. We were set to meet them at 1:00. The museum employee looked at our ticket and said to be patient, we are in the right place. Still no one. 1:00 passed. We asked again and he then looked at our ticket and said we were at the wrong spot. Now, 1:10 we rushed across the crowded square toward the palace and found an entrance. No one was there. We asked the employee at the door and I have no idea why this happened, but they told us the tour already went in and then he got a radio and escorted us through employee elevators and back doors to where we could wait for the tour group to pass us so we could join. I was so surprised they didn’t just tell us too bad so sad. We were a little lost as we missed a little bit of the introduction, but it was an interesting tour. The girls would have hated it. Ha. I have thought that several times on this trip. 

View from the Bridge of Sighs that prisoners saw as they went down into the cells. We went down there. So freaky.

The room for questioning prisoners. The rope was tied to their wrists behind their backs and then hoisted up causing great pain to help get prisoners  to talk. 

The tour took about an hour and since we had purchased full day Vapretto tickets, we decided to head over to Murano by boat to check out the Murano glass and see what that island looked like. I have been thinking of buying a Murano glass pendant so we thought we should look on Murano. It was a bit of a trek on water just figuring out boat to boat to boat transfers. It took us maybe 45 to get there. The weather was changing and the storm clouds were looming. We landed over there at about 5:00 and we noticed a couple things. First, all the stores seemed to have the same things we saw in Venice. Next, lots of stores were closed. Last, it seemed like the town was preparing for a storm. We lasted about 30 min there and decided we should get back before the storm. 

The rain seemed to hold off until we got back to our place. We got some rain and a little bit of thunder. Umbrellas are a little more difficult to use in the narrow corridors of Venice. It didn’t stop us though. We threw some clean clothes on and left shortly after returning to have some dinner and maybe a little late night browsing. 

Dinner was really good. I wanted to eat something regional and though I never eat fish, I tried the clams. My pasta was really good. My stomach is a little unhappy that it’s digesting something unfamiliar but it was fun to taste something other than spaghetti or pizza for a change. We wanted to finish our Venice visit with some tiramisu but the shop was closed! One for trip to Suso for stracciatella gelato again I guess!

Overall, We really enjoyed a couple days in Venice and we are ready to move on to Milan. I think if I was into couture and luxury hotels, ai would want to stay longer. I am very happy to have been able to visit, stay in Laura’s apartment, not see the ghost of her mother (she used to live in it), and experience this one of a kind area. These are the last of the photos of the beautiful things we saw.

Thanks for coming along on our trip. We have one more stop and one more apartment to stay in. I am sitting here on a train again feeling really grateful and happy. That being said, I miss home. I love to travel and I love  to return back to my beautiful family (and Frank the velociraptor)and the home we’ve made.