Milan

I'm finally caught up on my blog writing...yay!!! A couple months ago there were really cheap tickets from Amsterdam to Milan so I just decided to book them and go for a weekend. One of my favorite things was definitely the food. I ate so much on Saturday and none of it good for you haha. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well on Sunday and didn't have much of an appetite but Saturday more than made up for it. I had a delicious thing that I can't remember the name of but it was like a fat cannoli but crispier and I also, of course, had a cannoli. For lunch I went to a place called Panzerotti Luini which is a really popular lunch place (the line stretched down half the block!) and they have things called panzerottis which is like a fried calzone. I had the classic tomato and mozzarella and it was so so good. From the same place I also got a pastry filled with chocolate and pears. If you're in Italy it's a give in that you have to get gelato, even if the temperature is only slightly above freezing. But even with the cold, the gelato was delicious. To end the night I had pizza with grilled vegetables which, as you guessed, was delicious. So now that I've made myself hungry to go back I'll move on to the sites I saw...
The Cathedral (Duomo) was absolutely stunning. Construction started at the end of the 14th century and never really finished until the 20th century. In addition to going inside the cathedral, I went up to the roof.

View from the top

I went to see The Last Supper which is at Santa Maria della Grazie. During WWII much of the church was damaged from bombs but the wall the painting is on luckily wasn't damaged. The painting had started to deteriorate only decades after da Vinci  painted it, so it's gone through many restorations. It was really neat to see it in person and see it's actual size (which is really big!).

I walked down Via Monte Napoleone which is where all the expensive designer shops are located. They all have interesting window displays and most of them are decorated for Christmas. That was fun to see!

I went to the museum at La Scala Opera which had a lot of props and mementos from performances there and a large exhibit on Verdi. Many of his operas premiered there. It does not look that impressive from the outside but the inside of the theater was gorgeous. You can't take pictures in there so here's a picture of it. 

Castello Sforzesco is a castle that was built in the 15th century and a few centuries later was enlarged and became one of the largest citadels in Europe. Here is an aerial picture of the castle so you can get an idea of how big it actually is. It now houses 14 different museums, archives, and libraries. I went into a few of the museums and really liked the musical instrument museum. It has a large collection of antique instruments including a harp guitar which I had never heard of before. It's basically a guitar with a miniature harp attached. There's a large park behind the castle and at the end of it is the Porta Sempione which is an old city gate. 

Part of the castle

Porta Sempione