Mom's Visit - Milano

My Mom and sister came to visit in April, we had so much fun just running around the city, enjoying the spring weather.  We were here for a few "bonus" days, thanks to the volcano, but we made the most of them ... 

We started the day by participating in the luck inducing tradition 

of stomping the bull's testicles in the galleria, and enjoying the piazza duomo.

Mom and Gracie were here during the design fair in Milan, 

which is sort of like the design version of fashion week, 

so our visit to the trendy shopping district,Via Montenapoleone,

was even more fun than usual.

The lanterns were made my different designers, and hung just for design week... so pretty!

We decided to swing by Mr. MqQueen's store and pay our respects.

What amazing stuff!

Gaga wore these in Bad Romance, which you should probably take a moment to enjoy.

You can see the shoes at 3:28.   :)

Apperitivo might just be my very favorite thing about Milan.

We're drinking "spritz," the cocktail of choice for Northern Italians. 

It's pretty light and refreshing, and a little bit tart.

Yum.

We were going to take the metro, but it was so filled with drunken futbol fans that we decided against it.  Not to waste a perfectly good metro fare, we decided to have a frozen coffee in the metro cafe.  :)

We ended up on one of these, instead.

This is your average Milanese street car.  They run to everywhere in the city that's worth going to, and 1 Euro gets you 75 minutes of travel time.  80% of riders don't pay, but if you get caught the fine is 50 Euro.  Yikes.

I love graffiti.  I know it's vandalism, but I can't help but find it beautiful.

In front of the Castello Sforzesco.

  The castle is home to a pack of stray cats, all of whom look well fed (pigeons, anyone?)

and appear to spend their days in the height of cat luxury, basking in the sun and chasing mice.

Being the cat fanatics that we are, we enjoyed spying on them.

The one sitting on the feet of the statue was a pregnant female cat.

She looked pretty cozy.

If you click to enlarge, you can see her sweet little kitty face.  What a doll.

At the end of the video you can see a white feathery splat that is the remains of a pigeon dinner.

In the park is a small bridge that has beautiful mermaid statues on each end.

Couples write their initials on locks and then chain them to the bridge, just like in Verona.

 What a peaceful day.

No trip to the park would be complete without a sandwhich stop at the panini cart! 

I felt so lucky to be in Milan in the first place, and even more lucky to get to share all of my favorite Milanese things with my Mom... I'm so glad she was able to make the trip over, we had such an amazing time!