Day 1: Milan & Verona

Milan
At the Central FS station waiting for our subway train to our next attraction in Milan.

Milan
Piazza del Duomo or otherwise known as Milan's cathedral. It is Italy's largest gothic style cathedral. Unfortunately, it was chilly and foggy that day.

Milan
HF, in front of the piazza's grand arcade entrance with lots of cafeterias, designer's outlets, and more designer's outlets.

Milan
Pigeons everywhere and there's an indian man who'd be willing to take a picture of you with the birds for a small fee. He feeds them. The pigeons calls him Mommy!

Milan
Inside the arcade. Here, posing with a mosaic floor tile of the official seal of Rome. S.P.Q.R means Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, which means The Senate and The People of Rome. I have no idea why the seal illustrates humans being fed from the cow's udder.

Milan
Onwards to Milan's last standing castle, Castello Sforzesco, which is a very popular historical building that was built in the second half of 14th century during the time of Galeazzo II Visconti. I can't even begin to pronounce its name at first sight. The castle was named after Francesco Sforza.

Milan
At the castle of Sforza (Google Earth it, 45°28'11.94"N, 9°10'46.50"E). There's a deep stretch of trench, about 5-8m high, around the entire castle that I believe that one would need a let-down bridge to access into the castle. It's like we're living in the legends of knights and dragons!

Milan
Up and against the walls of the Sforza castle. When HF and 'the wall' are one, something special happens.

Milan
My own macho mug shot just outside of the castle. There's a nice huge fountain on the causeway to the entrance but it annoyed us so that is why there's no picture with the fountain here.

Milan
Ice cream! They all say that the best ice cream on earth is in Italy. We've been on the look-out for ice cream parlor since we landed and this La Voglio Ice Cream shop was where we had our first Italian ice cream!
It wasn't that bad. However, HF said that she still preferred Ben & Jerry's simply because, I think, we did not know what we're eating. The flavors were all in Italian!

Milan
Making our way back to the train station for Verona when we discovered we still have time to probably queue up to see the Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper. We did go and were at the residence of The Last Supper, which is in a church, but we have no ticket reservation(s) and tickets were sold out.
We had to book tickets 14 days in advance in order to get a glimpse of the world famous painting. We didn't know; but consoled ourselves that we've seen it in The Da Vinci Code (Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou)

Verona
The Walls of Verona! On the scribe: "There is no world without Verona walls. But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banish from the world, and the world's exile is death...", an excerpt of Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet Act 3, Scene 3.

Verona
The performer bends down when we deposited a coin for him as if saying to HF, "Would you please let me give you a kiss?" And he looks straight back at me each time and bends down again for 3 times. Hilarious!

Verona
Arrived at the home of Juliet -- Casa di Giulietta. I initially doubted and was expecting to arrive at a great mansion with golden gates but to my surprise I arrived to a shabby tunnel, which leads to the famous balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet. Ah! I was enlightned!

Verona
The walls of the tunnel was scribbled with graffities of those who have been here declaring their love and heart to the person s/he loves.
You can see it everywhere from the most bottom of the wall to the ceiling! There was nothing to climb on, though!

Verona
"Danniee, I want to write one up there!", she told me as she pointed to the ceiling! "Can you write on for me there?" I was like... "Umm, uhh..... omg! Great! *Speechless!*"

Verona
A true believer of romance. Tears began to trinkle down her cheeks when she saw millions of people left a note on the wall of the tunnel expressing their eternal love for each other.

Verona
It was said that whosoever touch (but I grabbed) the right side of Juliet's breast will have a blessing in the person's romance. I hope I have grabbed an eternal blessing in my romantic relationship, 'cos I need more than a touch of blessing!

Verona
On Juliet's balcony. HF was here before, it was my turn to go up there. I pretended to be Juliet when a group of Japanese tourists arrived at the bottom and started giggling and laughing. It was a short-lived romantic moment turned into embarrassment.

Verona
Inside the home of Juliet, posing nearby her balcony.

Verona
Juliet still lives in the hearts of many, and there's only one way to get to her -- email her! I wonder if Juliet has get to reading the email I sent to her yet.

Verona
We always send postcards back to ourselves as a little souvenir packed with memories.