Milan, Day 1

Our first day in Milan started out with a trip to the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci.

We had to arrive a little before our reservations which gave us enough time to look around the monastery. We then went in to view The Last Supper for our allotted 15 minutes. It was amazing to finally see it in person. I wish I could have spent more time just gazing at it.

And, to our surprise, turns out we booked our tickets at the same time as our friends - Giuseppe, Emma and Anna. We all made our reservations over a month ago, and without knowing it we booked our visit to The Last Supper on the same day, 15 minutes apart!! It worked out perfectly to be able to spend the rest of of the day in Milan together. Fun!

After The Last Supper, we went to another wing of the monastery to see the special exhibit of Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus. Ooooh, Fabio and I were in awe to see some of his original drawings and writings, and see his mirror-image cursive. Fascinating! It was also interesting how on one piece of paper there would be a collection of thoughts/drawings.

After viewing the codex, we walked over to the Biblioteca Pinacoteca Accademia Ambrosiana to view the art gallery and library, which was pretty impressive. We were also able to view more of Leonardo's codex.

After all that, we wandered around the shopping streets and found another yummy Laduree macaroon store. This was our happy visit before the lady behind the counter started yelling at me for taking photos. Boo on Laduree in Milan!

And here we are in the beautiful Galleria.

Tourists taking a spin on the bull's balls for good luck!

The grand Duomo of Milan (Did you know that it took nearly 6 centuries to complete and it is the 4th largest cathedral in the world? Pretty impressive!)

Up on top!

Oooh, the view of the sun setting over Milan was just the best.

Here were are taking a look inside the cathedral.

The Piazza del Duomo-

And the Galleria is so pretty with all its Christmas lights.

And that about wraps up our first day touring Milan.