Epilogue #1 - Walking Statistics for the Trip

We always enjoy tracking our exercise during our travels.  The lifestyle for these trips typically involves a lot more walking than we are used to here in Wayland.  We made an effort to ramp up our daily routine for a couple of months before the trip to get in shape, but the summer was hot and walking was often an effort. 

In any case, we were really excited to have met a rather ambitious goal.  As we were gone almost exactly a month, we calculated that if we really pushed hard, we might reach 100 miles.   In the end, that is exactly what we accomplished!  We had to use Day #30 as the first day at home......unpacking and adjusting, but that added increment got us over the 100 mile mark!

One of the challenges with FitBit is understanding how to measure steps.  We have used two methods.  The first lets Fitbit set the distance of the stride (not sure how this works)...... while the other let's you set the measurement.  It typically falls around 24", but obviously that varies by individual and is probably a bit different for each of us.......so the science is a bit imprecise.  That being said, we looked back at our last couple of trips to Italy.  In 2019, we were in Italy for 26 days and walked 204,672 steps for an average of 7,872 steps per day. In 2018, we were in Rome for 31 days and walked 262,442 steps for an average of 8,466 per day......haha, younger and stronger!

For our Venice escapade we achieved 252,835 for an average of 8,428 steps per day.  Each of these trips seem to have similar statistics, a pace that would be wonderful to keep up with back in Wayland!  We averaged 3.4 miles per day for a total of 101.90 miles for the trip!

Il Nostro Giorno di Partenza

 Not sure if this will be a short blog......or a more extended one.  What we do understand is that it is a day or closure.  It is not necessarily good or bad, but rather the end to a wonderful adventure.  If nothing else, we have a truly amazing trip to be thankful for.  We could not have imagined that the experience would have worked out this well.  One always has expectations, but also a nagging sense that things may not all go as planned.  In this instance, we experienced both the intended and the unexpected, and it all was quite memorable.  Some of it was relaxing (which we really had hoped for) while much of it was stimulating, unplanned and revealing.  It might be that the surprises are the best part.

As with all travels, we need to find the best way back to where we started from.  Traveling has its ups and downs, and flying 'west' is intriguing as we gain back the time zone shift.  While the numbers seem to work here......the physical 'extension' of our energy is somewhat of a challenge!  This is a real 24 hour marathon!  Sorry, absolutely no reason to have any complaints!  Driving and flying is what gets us where we want to go!

This gets us to the start of our return journey.  We got up at about 6:30.......and had a relatively easy process to get us down to breakfast.  We had packed well the night before and had little to do.  We (or Fiske) ate quite a bit from the buffet!  We have quite a fun tale to tell about a crazy little east Indian man who we have seen around the hotel......a lot......and he was there for breakfast as well.  Ask us if you are interested!

We grabbed our bags and lugged them down to the front desk to check out.  The folks behind the counter remembered us from the past two days and joked that we had to speak in italian in order for them to help us! "Voi ragazzi parlate molto bene l'italiano!"

The car was waiting and we checked in with Siri again.  The drive to the airport was in early rush hour, but not too bad......other than cars swerving in all directions, honking as they flew by.  Just a normal commute!  The last time we flew out of Linate airport, we missed the turn for rental cars.  This time Andrea had done some research with Europecar and had some more specific directions.  We made it to the garage without a hitch.  Once we checked in, however, we ran into a huge disagreement between the woman and man staffing the Europecar office.  She was furious with him......for reasons we are not sure of.  In any case, we are somewhat nervous as we have not yet received our Visa charge confirmation!

The  Linate airport is realtively low key......probably less so than Malpensa, where most of the direct flights to the U.S. run out of.  We were flying Aer Lingus from Milan to Dublin to Boston.  After missing some key signs, we found our baggage check in station and everything went very fast and uneventful.  The problem now was that we got through all the check-in procedures a bit earlier than anticipated.  Look how lonely Andrea is waiting for our flight initially!

The wait was not too bad, and gave us time for an espresso!

Still an old-fashioned bus on the tarmac and stairs up to the plane!  Actually, a bit of an adventure!

Front and back!

and inside

PHOTOS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE PICTURES OF CLOUDS

more importantly, a farewell to Italy for this trip! Beautiful images of Lake Como and the Swiss Alps.

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

The White Cliffs of Dover were wonderful!

LANDING IN DUBLIN......THE FINAL LEG

A Day in Milano

 not started yet

THE BREAKFAST BUFFET!

THE LOBBY AND THE HOTEL

LA GALLERIA VITTORE EMANUELE  II

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is Italy's oldest active shopping gallery and a major landmark of Milan in Italy. Housed within a four-story double arcade in the centre of town, the Galleria is named after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy. It was designed in 1861 and built by architect Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877.

The structure consists of two glass-vaulted arcades intersecting in an octagon covering the street connecting Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Scala. The street is covered by an arching glass and cast iron roof, a popular design for 19th-century arcades, such as the Burlington Arcade in London, which was the prototype for larger glazed shopping arcades, beginning with the Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels (opened in 1847), the Passazh in St Petersburg (opened in 1848), the Galleria Umberto I in Naples (opened in 1890), and the Budapest Galleria. The Galleria is often nicknamed il salotto di Milano (Milan's drawing room), due to its numerous shops and importance as a common Milanese meeting and dining place

The central octagonal space is topped with a glass dome. The Milanese Galleria was larger in scale than its predecessors and was an important step in the evolution of the modern glazed and enclosed shopping mall, of which it was the direct progenitor. It has inspired the use of the term galleria for many other shopping arcades and malls.

THE DUOMO

Milan Cathedral, or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary (Italian: Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente), is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Dedicated to the Nativity of St Mary (Santa Maria Nascente), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan.

The cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in 1386, and the final details were completed in 1965. It is the largest church in the Italian Republic—the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City, a sovereign state—and possibly the second largest in Europe and the third largest in the world (its size and position remain a matter of debate).

Work for the construction of Milan cathedral began when the style of Gothic cathedrals had reached its peak. It was decided that the new church should be built in the area of the ancient basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Tecla, the remains of which, together with those of the Baptistery of San Giovanni alle Fonti, are still visible in the Archaeological Area.

The long succession of architects and engineers at the head of this innovative and original construction site makes it impossible to trace a certain authorship of the project.

Construction began from the apse, with its awe-inspiring and imposing stained-glass windows, and continued towards the transept and the first spans of the naves, leaving the age-old problem of closing the vault unresolved.  At the end of the fifteenth century the greatest architects and artists of the time, including Leonardo da Vinci, tried to accomplish the difficult task of designing the tiburium. Once this phase was concluded and a unanimous decision was reached, construction work continued and a new phase started under the inspiration of the work of Carlo Borromeo.

The design of the church’s façade began at the end of the sixteenth century, when the foundations for its prospetto (front) were laid, meanwhile the ancient façade of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore (which was demolished in 1683) had been rebuilt forward of its original position. As was the case for many other architectural elements of the cathedral, the façade too had to wait for long (until the end of the eighteenth century) before a definitive plan was completed.

Truly a multi-century collaborative and evolutionary project.  The end result, however, maintains a strong sense of unity and singular perspective.......it is enormously powerful!

TIME FOR A BREAK!

This is the line waiting just to get tickets to the Duomo........in order to go across the piazza and wait another 30 minutes to get in!  We opted out  of this one, as we had been inside previously.....back when these simple visits were much less complicated.  We decided it was time for a cappucino break and found a fun outdoor cafe on the edge of the Piazza della Scala.

BACK TO THE HOTEL AND A NICE WALK TO LUNCH

The small park in front of the hotel

The panini are more important than the people.......and that is a wonderful fennel and orange salad.....phenomenal!

TIME FOR LA CENA

We decided to hang around the hotel for the evening.  The bar is a wonderfully comfortable space, and we found out their menu for dining had changed recently and they were serving an upgraded risotto and Alba white truffle menu!  We need no further justification.  The risotto milanese with saffron was amazing, and the tagliolini with white truffles was incredible.