We had a very late night! The plane didn’t leave til 11.05 pm and after the welcome drink ( I tried Finnair’s signature Blueberry juice) there was then a delay with the dinner service due to turbulence – I dind’t settle down to sleep until 2.15am Tokyo time . However, thanks to the comfort of a lie flat bed and a pill, I got about 6 hours sleep, which I was pretty happy with. The service from the Finnair staff was excellent, and I enjoyed a couple of movies, “The Proposal” and “All the Presidents Men”. Not long before we arrived in helsinki the staff handed us all large cards – our route had taken us over the North Pole and we were presented with a “diploma” to commemorate that journey – a cute gimmick! And actually not our first flight over the pole, we did it a few years ago when we flew to Paris from Tokyo.That time was with JAL, and they didn’t give you a diploma
We arrived a little early into Helsinki which was great as it gave us some extra time to go through the new entry procedures for arriving in the EU. We had a bit of a queue, but not too bad, and thanks to our early arrival we had time to briefly visit the Finnair lounge where I repaired the state of my hair! We had a bit of a walk to our gate for our connecting flight to Milan, passing several very Finnish shops – they love their Moomins and Marrimekko of course!
The flight to Milan was just under 50 minutes. We had Finnair’s “Euro Business” this time ( I do love using those Qantas Frequent Flyer points!) which is essentially the same seat as Economy but they just block out the middle seat and give you extra service. Our “second breakfast” was very tasty and we had whatever we wanted to drink.
Arrival in Milan was very quick, having gone through immigration control in Helsinki, this intra-EU flight was essentially like a domestic flight. It meant that we arrived in the arrivals hall a half an hour earlier than the time that I had booked for our transfer into Milan, so we had a bit of a wait before the driver arrived. malpensa airport is about a 50 minute drive from central Milan so we arrived at the hotel at about 11.30am. We were very warmly welcomed by a charming concierge – our room wasn’t ready but they offered us coffee and pastries ( our third breakfast of the day!) and then minded the bags while we went out to explore.
It took us 5 minutes to walk from the hotel to Piazza Duomo, I hadn’t realised just how huge the Milan Duomo is ( you never get a real idea of scale from photos!) It is such a beautiful building, with its elaborately decorated facade and towers. We have tickets to go inside and also up to the roof terrace ( thankfully via a lift!) tomorrow, so today we just admire the exterior.
The Piazza was absolutely heaving with people… and pigeons! We strolled around and took a look at the exterior of the huge Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II . It is Italy’s oldest active shopping arcade, a four-story double arcade named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy. We did’t go inside today, that’s on my plan for tomorrow.
Next we walked back towards the hotel to visit the Pinacoteca and Biblioteca Ambrosiana – an art museum and historic library . It is the oldest museum in Milan with key works by Da Vinca, Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael and Botticelli . They also have other artifats such as the gloves that Napoleon wore at the Battle of Waterloo.
The building itself is beautiful, with a lovely internal courtyard and many galleried staircases, some decorated in gorgeous mosaics.
In the library they have the complete Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s writings and drawings. In total it consists of 1,119 large pages bound into 12 volumes., they span over 40 years of Leonardo’s life, dating from 1478 to 1519. There are several of the pages displayed in the library, all handwritten in Leonardo’s spidery mirror image script. He wrote them all from right to left!!
After this we went down underneath the museum into the Church of San Sepolcro, known as the “Crypt,”. It is actually a true underground church which dates back to 1030, when the Milanese mint master Benedetto Rozzone had it built on the site of the ancient Roman forum of the city of Mediolanum.
By this stage we were happy to head back to the hotel. Our room was ready and we were glad to freshen up and rest a bit – we were both feeling the effects of the long flights.
The hotel offer a glass of prosecco and nibbles in their bar every evening, so we changed and went down a little after 6.30 to enjoy the pre dinner drink. There were plenty of others in the lobby and bar taking advantage of the offer as well. Afterwards we went down and around the corner to a restaurant called Spadari for dinner. We sat outside in the terrce area enjoying a Mushroom risotto for me and a seafood pasta for Neil washed down with a Pinot Grigio. It was a lovely eveing, very mild and pleasant watching the people pass by. We have come back to the hotel for an early night – we’re jetlag pooped!
