Waking up at 4AM to catch the 6:20AM train from Modena to Milano was an overkill. But it was a much-needed head start considering the fact that Hema had to do her make-up routine after her shower.
As usual I was quick to get ready and started annoying Hema as it was getting late. I remember she was pissed off that I kept calling out the time every minute and how that reminded her of her dad.
I guess it’s an (Indian) guy thing. We wanted to leave at least 15 minutes earlier than our plan, so that we wouldn’t have to run to the train station. But we ended up leaving the house at the threshold wherein we had to do a fast-paced walk to reach the station on time. Anyway, we reached the station on time.
We only had to wait 3-4 minutes on the platform before our train arrived. Thanks to online booking, we didn’t have to waste a couple of minutes on validating the tickets. As we didn’t have any breakfast in the morning, other than a glass of water before leaving the house, we were already feeling hungry. Hema keeps telling me that I cannot tolerate hunger. That’s mostly true. But she was prepared for it. A pack of multigrain cookies in her backpack saved us from eating each other. 😁
Happily, munching on our cookies, our journey began. 2 hours 15 minutes of chatting politics, science, and gazing at the scenery, we spent our time talking nonsense as usual. Excited and planning our day, we recited our plan for the day. Milan Cathedral was the first one on the itinerary. A clear sky would be an absolute delight for a view from the top. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Milan was scattered thunderstorms 😢.
However, we were lucky to find out upon reaching the cathedral that it was not that bad. And surprisingly the square of the Duomo was not as crowded as we anticipated. Mostly because we were so early to reach there. Anyway, after taking a couple of pictures we headed straight to the rooftop of the cathedral. Below, are some beautiful clicks from the view.
The return stairwell from the roof led straight into the cathedral and we enjoyed the amazing interiors of the cathedral walking around. We also went to the archelogical area and meseum of Duomo.
The next item on the itinerary was lunch, a proper Italian restaurant. We found a decent restaurant near the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The oldest active shopping gallery.
I ordered tagliatelle with chicken and mushrooms and Hema ordered a platter of focaccia. Though it was too much quantity, it looked beautiful, nevertheless. Several slices of focaccia topped with mozzarella, pesto plus yellow and red cherry tomatoes were so colorful that Hema’s decided not to finish it off 😜. With oil and pesto dripping Hema’s fingers, she ate as much as she could and got the remaining food packed. We finally finished off our meal with a cafe. In about an hour, we were done. It was almost 2PM. With a full tummy, we moved on towards the Castello Sforzesco. The sky was cloudy, and we knew then it was going to rain.
So, no pictures from during that time. 😢
We did walk around Milano, going every which way we could. At one point we were so tired we couldn’t walk further. We had to stop and rest for a while. Our calf and thigh muscles were aching really bad. Somehow, we gathered all the energy we could and headed towards the station to return home. We finally made it home at around 9.45PM and the Focaccia that we packed was a life saver. We didn’t have to cook at that time. We slept off at 11PM and woke up after around 10 hours. Every muscle in our body was exhausted. We were really concerned about our trip again to Milano. Because the weekend was not over yet for us.
The plan was to go watch the Tamil movie Vikram which was screening at the Arcobaleno Film Center. Sunday came and we did the whole routine again, but only this was it was the 7.30AM train. The theatre was filled with Tamil community. Keralites, Sri Lankan Tamils and more. It is always surprising for me to see so many Tamils at outside India. It was one time before, many years ago, that I experience such an event for a screening of another Tamil movie.
