Milan, Dusseldorf, and Gaming

We are now in Dusseldorf, but I haven't posted about our last day in Milan yet, and it definitely deserves some commentary. We woke up on Tuesday and our goal was to be at Angelo's house by 10. This plan involved riding the bus/tram, so we were a bit nervous about making it on time. You see, it is always more difficult to ride the tram system because they do not tell you where they stop. And when you do not know what streets you are passing and you do not have a map, it is very easy to get really stitched up.

With that said, we made it on time! We navigated the tram correctly. Perhaps we are starting to belong here. We met Angelo at his house and we started to discuss the day ahead of us. Angelo had wrangled a friend of his (who also happens to be a taxi driver) to drive us around the city. The center of the city is always bustling with buses, pedestrians, cars, etc., so this was essential. Of course, we could have walked had we been alone, but this was a great alternative. The two main items that we wanted to accomplish for the day were to visit Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper and to Climb to the top of the Duomo.

It seems that most of the time it is necessary to book for the Last Supper months in advance. We booked at 10:30 and happily we would be able to see it at 3:30.

We visited some churches and sites on the way to the Duomo. My favorite part of revisiting the Duomo was our realization that one of the musical staircases existed near it!


We have videos!

But, the other truly magnificent part of having Angelo along was his knowledge of the Churches and architecture in the city. He spent a good deal of time extolling the amazing facts of the Duomo but also explaining what the differences were Romantic, Baroque, and Gothic architecture.

On top of the Duomo, we captured a picture that made the trip perfect for me. You see, for the entire trip, we have depended heavily on our Lonely Planet guide. On the cover of the Lonely Planet there is a picture of something high up. We didn't know what it was for most of the trip, but figured it out by looking at the credits. It is a picture of the top of the Duomo. Well, we climbed up to the top and now have "the lonely planet picture."


We spent Tuesday night gaming with Angelo. We played War Angel, his first published game. Both Jeremy and I had a very good time playing in.

The next morning, we had to travel to Milan (Bergamo). There are good and bad things about traveling with Ryan Air. The good thing is that the original cost of the ticket is very low. The bad thing is that you often have to travel a long time to get to and from the airports that they send you to. Let me tell you, Bergamo is not Milano. It is an hour outside of Milan! And Weeze is not Dusseldorf!

Still, we discovered something in the Bergamo airport that stunned us.

We did buy this pizza. Sadly, it didn't quite come with tomato sauce. The cheese, when it was on the pizza was good, but this only happened over half of the pizza. The other half was burned.


We arrived in Dusseldorf and headed pretty much straight towards our hostel. Of course, we stopped for some pastries at one of the many bakeries in Dusseldorf.

Then, last night, we met Olav, Kirsten (his wife), Olaf (friend), and Sandra (Olaf's wife). Olav helped me out so much on this trip. He stored all of my Essen purchases for me while I traveled around the world! Kirsten also cooked a wonderful bean and sausage stew for us. The bread was similarly delicious.


After dinner, we played Ursuppe and then Diamant.

I had a great time and just want to thank Olav and Kirsten for their hospitality.