And we're off!

It is time again to break out the little red suitcase and head on an adventure, this time through Italy!

After a long day of traveling, which included a rain delay at JFK,

 we finally made it to Milan! (Needle, Thread and Knot sculpture by Claes Oldenburg speaking to my love of sewing.)

The day's delays put us a couple hours behind our plan, but we got settled into our hotel and then headed out to explore. First stop was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This beautiful iron-and-glass structure was built during the time of the Eiffel tour and celebrated the establishment of Italy as a country.

 On the floor are patriotic mosaics. One, depicting a bull for the city of Torino, has developed a tradition in which people spin around (twice, clockwise according to locals) on the bull's testicles for good luck. We observed quite a few participants in the tradition, and we can see why this particular mosaic ends up being replaced every couple years.

From here we visited the Duomo, the fourth largest church in Europe, made from pink Candoglia marble. Construction on the Duomo lasted from 1386 to 1810, and even though the Renaissance had begun during this time, the builders kept the Gothic style with its pointed arches and spires.

 We also encountered someone I can only describe as crazy, because no one in their right mind would try to have pigeons land on them for a photo. She succeeded, by the way...

Inside, we were shocked to learn that the elaborately carved ceilings are actually painted, which saved money!

We were then able to take a trip up to the roof of the Duomo. What a view!

It was such a neat experience to be up close and able to walk on top of such an incredible building. It was also kind of crazy to see how many people were up there.

We were pretty exhausted by this point so we ate dinner, treated ourselves to the first tiramisu of the trip, and called it an early night. Tomorrow morning we're off to Venice!