Tag: milan

We arrived at the Agrotourismo site mid-afternoon.  Too late to go into town so instead we stocked up the food and drink mine and then enjoyed an evening of British TV – We are far enough north now for the ‘tight’ UK only satellite footprint to spread to us. It was great to watch some ‘prime time’ BBC TV – paid for by the 1977 TV licence fee.  Does anyone know what they have done with the rest of the money?

On Sunday we spent the day in Milano.  We had lots of things on the list but we managed to be pretty unsuccessful at the planned things – damn those queues.

We wanted to see ‘The Last Supper’ but it’s sold out for the next three weeks – fail!  Instead, we went to see the church where it resides. We wanted to see inside the Duomo, but the queue was hours long, so we satisfied ourselves with a view of the outside – still pretty impressive!

We walked around the Sforzesco Castle and then the Sempione Park behind it – a great walk around an urban garden.  Then we went up the Torre “Branca” – a 100-meter tower built in 1933.

Our last visit for the day was to the Science museum – Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia. T really wanted to see their Enigma machine – but guess what – it was not on display!  

Instead, they have a good collection of Theo Jansen Strandebeesten – including a running demo – so that was awesome.  They also had the Carabinieri demonstrating a bomb disposal robot so we spent some time watching that too! The museum is a great visit although it has a pretty eccentric layout and we got lost many times!

Back to the mothership early evening. On the way back we spotted what looked like an enormous rat down by a small stream.  We had already spotted rats there earlier in the day, but as the glance was of a massive beast we hung around and got some great views of the massive buggers.  We later found out that the big ‘rats’ are Coypu – originally from South America and accidentally released in other parts of the world after being farmed for fur.  

Then to the van for a homemade pizza and a Bond film.  Early start the next day. We both bemoaned that we have not seen the sea for many weeks.  It will be a couple more weeks yet but we’ll try and fit in a lake!