Italy Part Six

Friday, September 23. Once again we enjoyed our slow pace in the morning, reading our Bibles together, drinking our coffee and eating our cereal for breakfast. The airb&b did not have any bowls, though, so we had to get creative. But it worked!

Since this was our last day in Italy and we had the day to ourselves, we decided to take the train to Milan where we would see a very famous painting. We did NOT know that Milan was a very busy city. It reminded me of Chicago or New York. It was so busy. So many people and cars everywhere. We were about a 40 minute walk from our destination and the longer we walked, the more stressed I was becoming. I do not like busy cities. They make me nervous. Trevor finally found out how the subs worked and we were able to get on those and take it subway to within about 5 minutes of our destination.

There was some cool old buildings in the middle of the city, though, so we tried to enjoy those as we walked.

Trevor trying to do a cool IG post picture. haha. This was actually a little awkward, but we got it.


Another old castle fort.



A really neat looking archway.


This outdoor mall area had a mix of old and new.


When we were trying to decide what to do for lunch, I was like, “Man. What I wouldn’t give for a burger and fries.” As it so happened, we had passed a sign for a restaurant that advertised American cooking. It had burgers, steak, fries and chicken, so we decided to check it out.



Ah….a little taste of home. It was so good.

And finally it was time for our reason for this day trip to Milan. The painting of The Lord’s Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci



It was nice to have this sketch that told which disciple was which.

And across the room, on the opposite wall was this painting.


Some history about these two paintings.





Some more history about the restoration of The Lord’s Supper painting. You might have to click on pictures with writing to read it all.

After seeing the painting, we made our way back to the subway and took that all the way to the train station. So much better than walking through the madness of the city. We grabbed a snack at the train station and then headed back to Verona. This trip was pretty much all day, so by the time we got back to our room, we were pretty tired. We started repacking what we didn’t need for the next day, and called it a night.

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Saturday, September 24. We didn’t have a whole lot of extra time to sit around this morning because Bro Isaac was going to pick us up at 8 and drive us to the airport. So we finished off what we could of our cereal, had one last cup of Italian coffee, finished packing up our stuff and checked out of our airb&b.

Once we got to the airport, going through customs and security wasn’t near as bad as I expected, so we got through fairly quickly. We now had an hour or so to hang out until our plane was ready to board.

Back in the U.S.A. It’s so good to be back in a land where things are familiar.

When we landed in Philly, the first thing I did was get a carmal latte. haha. Welcome back to the land of flavored coffees that take more that 3 drinks to get through. haha. We are so spoiled.

And speaking of spoiled….We had an unexpected blessing. On our trip from Philly to Louisville, we got upgraded to first class! I’ve never flown first class before. That was pretty amazing. All that legroom!!

So we made it home around 9:30 PM on Saturday night. Just in time to throw our suitcases in the middle of the floor, chat with the kids for a bit and head to bed.

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Final thoughts: Things I noticed that are a lot different from home.

1- I would say that about 60% of the people in Italy smoke. It’s everywhere! And there is no restrictions that I could tell. Since most of the restaurants had indoor/outdoor, it was had to get away from it no matter where you sat. I really missed the designated smoking areas and the “you much be at least 8ft from the building” things that we have in America. It was so hard to get away from the cigarette smoke in Italy.

2- Venice is the city that people visit to take Instagram pictures and get married. We saw 3 different couples in wedding attire getting their pictures taken in Venice. We also saw numerous teenage girls or young couples taking selfies or pictures of each other in all the stupid poses you see in front of cool places on Instagram. Which was funny until you had to wait for them to finish with their 100 photos before you could go take a “not so cool” picture yourself.

3- There are no places to just sit down and rest in Venice. You walk everywhere and sometimes you just want to sit a few minutes and rest, but you can’t. There’s no place to sit. You don’t even sit at the coffee shops.

4- There’s no public bathrooms in Venice. If you need to use the restroom, you have to go inside one of the restaurants and order something or hope that the museum you are visiting, has one.

5- Venice is a very beautiful city though. It’s a great place to visit and it’s got a lot of history and it really is worth visiting at least once in your lifetime.

6 – Verona seems like it’s less busy than Venice but I think it’s just because the roads are wider and there are actually cars. You can still walk to just about anywhere you want to go but you have other travel options as well, so it is a bit easier to get around. There’s still lots of people that smoke in Verona but because the city is bigger and there are more indoor areas to eat and walk around, it’s easier to get away from it if you need to. I’d go back to Verona again. I’d love to go see the country side and mountains of Verona.

7 – Milan is terrible. Way to busy, way to many people, way to unsafe feeling. I never felt like I was going to get pick pocked or approached by a beggar in Venice or Verona, but it sure felt that way in Milan. Was it worth it to go see the real deal painting of the Lord’s Supper?? For me, it was not. For Trevor is was. But he’s used to the big cities more that I am. I would not recommend going to Milan at all, unless you are ok with big, crazy cities.

So there you have it. I hope you have enjoyed the ramblings and blogging of our trip to Italy.