We're in Italy

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After leaving the tropical weather of Thailand, having a short layover in the desert of Doha, Qatar we arrived to the freezing, snowy, weather in Milan, Italy. We were so relieved to find our luggage had arrived in the baggage terminal to quickly retrieve our winter clothes. The boys, especially Dustin, often talks of missing cold weather, were surprised how 'thin' skinned they had become. It was cold! -7 C-20 degrees F when we landed. It didn't take long to get in the Christmas spirit with the cold, scattered snow, the holiday displays...

We had to hit the road running if we wanted to see any of Milan. We landed at 0630, found a bus after changing clothes in the airport toilets and took the 40 minute ride to the train terminal to store our luggage while we explored the city until our train departed for Naples, Italy at 1515 in the afternoon.

We quickly realized we were a little underdressed! Milan is known as the fashion capital of the world for a reason, I guess. The ladies on the street make quite a fashion statement, I felt out of place without a pair of black boots on or a fur coat! Dustin commented, "Man, there are a lot of dressed up Grandma's here!" It really is true, everyone looked beautiful along the streets of Milan. We were too cold and too busy to worry much about fashion.

Our first destination was the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is housed. I never imagined that I might actually see this ever in person after seeing it so many times in print. Mark actually saw it several years ago for the first time on a business trip to this area. What an amazing blessing. The Grazie was originally set up to be a magnificent family mausoleum for the Sforza family. The 7th duke of Milan, Ludovico il Sforza commissioned Leonardo to paint the infamous painting just two years before he was defeated by Louis XII and spent the remaining 8 years of his life in a French dungeon. The painting has survived many unbelievable incidents, one being the American bombing of the building in 1943, another was the whitewashing over by some monks in the 19th century but after years of restoration it is available for viewing in all of its' glory. After going through two rooms of isolation, to control the humidity and environment, we finally arrived into the hall where the painting is displayed.

We then traversed the cobble-stoned streets of Milan to view the famous Duomo, the world's second largest church in the world, the largest being St. Peter's in Rome, which we will also see in the next two weeks. The detail and work on the church is astounding. In the pictures, every ornate, marble, spire has a statue at the top of it. We had fun seeing if we could tell some of the Bible stories from the many stained glassed windows. Before the Bible was accesible to the comman person that was how they were taught-through the stained glass stories.

We stopped for lunch and enjoyed some delicious Italian pizza and enthusiastically began our Italian food adventure! We had the most delicious cup of hot chocolate in Milan ever! It really tasted a lot like warm, hot-fudge sauce in a cup with yummy whipped cream on top.

We enjoyed the sights of Milan by subway and walking before boarding our 5 hour train ride to Naples. We were exhausted and took advantage of the long train ride to catch up on sleep some. When we arrived into Naples we had some difficulty finding our hotel, that is located in the historical Spanish quarter of Naples because of that they are prohibited in advertising the hotel any, sure makes it hard for a lost tourist in the dark to find! But we managed to arrive around 9:30 pm to our rooms and the very welcome beds!

I'm thankful that all went well on our most difficult travelling day of the trip, after 13 hours of planes, a bus ride, several subway commutes and a train ride we are in a nice warm hotel in Naples, Italy. Of course, with the time change I'm up early enough to make a quick blog entry before we take a train out to tour the ruins of Pompeii all day. Another one of those "never thought I would see" places!