After a nice breakfast at our hotel (Note: I NEVER eat breakfast at home, but how can I resist these lovely breakfasts they have here?) …

we set off to take our scheduled La Scala tour. What fun that was! Unfortunately touring this time of year means things are being worked on, and there are no performances in the hall. (I’m hopeful that the next time we do a Big Trip we go during “shoulder season” when things are less crowded and we can attend some performances.) Still, our tour guide was great and we really enjoyed the tour. I took a photo of the music stands … everyone gets a tray. How nice it would be not to have to cart my tray to all my jobs!

After the tour we also went through the museum right next door. I didn’t bother with photos there, aside from the one where the woman seems to be saying, “You want me to play it AGAIN?!” but it was fun to see things there.

From La Scala we wandered until we found a good lunch spot. Like yesterday we had a larger lunch.

Finally, we walked to the Castello Sforzesco. We walked around a bit, and then decided to go into the museums. I was more interested in things like the castle ceilings, to be honest, but still it was a nice time … air conditioning makes anything worthwhile sometimes! We did not see the most famous thing there, the Rondanini Pieta … simply couldn’t find it, even though a woman who was in one room (a “guard” of sorts) told me in Italian where to go. I followed where she pointed, but I must have gone the wrong way at some point. Ah well. We can’t see everything!

We did have to go up high again, and one stairway was, for me, somewhat scary, but I just looked to the side where all I saw was a wall and the stairs and I was okay. I got to the top and clung to a wall while Dan took photos. Then a woman came up and was loudly proclaiming something to her son. She tried to say something to me but I explained I only spoke English. Her son came up and said, “She’s scared,” to me. I smiled and said, “Me too!” So we couldn’t speak much, but we sure could understand each other.

We did see the instrument museum as well, and as I was telling Dan, when you see great ancient or old art in a museum it’s one thing, but when you see ancient or old instruments you aren’t sure if you are looking at great instruments or just very old and useless things. I’m guessing many of the things we saw aren’t even playable. But it was fun to tour anyway, and I love seeing the old English horns.

Then back to our hotel for a bit of rest before we have another “light” dinner. (NO, this did not help me sleep last night. Such is life. I’ll survive.) which turned out not-so-light, but pretty delicious.

Tomorrow we have a train ride to take, so we will have another super breakfast, pack, and head to our next train station. We get to take a high speed train this time, while the next ones (I think four if not more), will be the regional. I’ve been warned that we can expect late starts and delays on those. We’ll see how it goes!

Ciao!