My birthday in Milan

Check out the photos I've added as well......

We headed out of Edinburgh on Friday afternoon and reached Bergamo (about 40 minutes from Milan) at 7.00pmish. We found the car hire place and went through the registration process which, as usual, took longer than it needed to. Then we were whisked off to the car park to pick up the car. It was of course a left hand drive car - a Ford Focus, large enough to hold all 5 of us. We got off to a slightly shaky start when we couldn't locate the lock - probably because I was holding the key on the passenger side of the car and Christopher was standing on the driver's side expecting to be a passenger. Anyway, we got the car unlocked, loaded it up and got going. We did fine, despite the fact that I had not quite worked out the size of my vehicle and gave all obstacles a wider berth than was strictly necessary, and that I kept trying to change gears using the door handle instead of the gear stick. We rocked up to our hotel and again the size of the vehicle caused a problem - I kerbed it and then stalled it!! Oh well, at least we had arrived safely.
We checked into the hotel and was told that the carparking we had expected was full but that the porter would direct me to a different carpark, just around the corner from the hotel. He and I headed off - he spoke absolutely no English, in fact he spoke a very Neapolitan dialect of Italian which I couldn't quite pick up (Let's be honest, I missed the whole lot really) He must have been quite nervous because he kept grabbing the steering wheel and trying to turn us in the direction he wanted us to go, which often resulted in us nearly being killed (I exaggerate but you get the drift).
Having disposed of the car, we went into town on the Metro and discovered the Duomo Centrale which is a magnificent sight at night - the photos do not do it justice. We wandered through the building, ignoring the supremely expensive restaurants despite being absolutely ravenous. We eventually found a lovely restaurant where we all ordered pizzas for dinner - they were huge. I couldn't eat it all as well as the side salad I had ordered. Leigh didn't need a side salad, she had hers on her pizza. We must have been hungry though because the pizzas tasted delicious, even if we had to leave great chunks of them behind.
We tried to get back to the hotel but the Metro appeared to have closed while we ate. We were just about to grab a cab when we realised that there were people coming out of a different metro station so we headed down there and got back to the hotel.
Saturday morning dawned overcast, but we got ourselves organised and headed off towards Venice. We got there in good time - 3 hours which included a half hour stop at one of the servizio for breakfast. As we neared Venice, it started raining with a vengeance and I thought we were in for a fairly unpleasant time. However, it stopped as we parked the car and we took off towards what we had been told was the main shopping area. We got lost but thoroughly enjoyed our walk through the streets and over the bridges of Venice. We had been checking the price of gondola rides along the way and it appeared that they had a set price, no matter where you went so we eventually selected one and took a ride along the canals for about an hour. It was delightful and I was surprised at how quiet it was, despite all the people and boats everywhere. I don't know what I had expected of Venice - people had given mixed reviews. Some say it is great, some say dirty and grubby. For me, it was a memorable experience and definitely a highlight of the trip. The weather was perfect, the canal didn't seem too dirty and despite getting lost regularly, it was lovely walking through the city. We walked for miles. It was so hot I had to buy a t-shirt and jandals so I could cool down. We tried to get a drink in the Per San Marco but were told that we had to pay 5.80 euros each just to sit down, then had to buy our drinks (at exorbitant prices) on top of that so we went looking for a cheaper option. We found one on the shady side of the canal and because we didn't want to eat as well, we were put down an alleyway beside the cafe. There was a slight breeze, which was very cooling and the waiter noticed that Leigh had nothing warm to put on (unlike the rest of us) so he gave her a table cloth to wrap around her shoulders - very elegant! We found that the older Venetians were very pleasant and had a great sense of humour, while the younger ones were quite arrogant and rude. As I said, it was a real highlight - I loved it.
We headed back to Milan about 5.30pm, arriving about 8.15pm and got changed ready for dinner. We went to an 'Irish' bar (although it would be hard to imagine anything less like an Irish bar) for a pre dinner drink then went to a restaurant just round the corner from our hotel. We had a lovely dinner and made friends with our waitress (Rosella) who did her best to protect us from a couple of drunken Romanians who kept interrupting our conversations. The landlord eventually kicked them out. We had a good night out.
The next day, we discovered that Milan is closed on Sundays which was a real shame because as we window shopped, we found so many lovely things to tempt us. Never mind, saved a fortune no doubt. We eventually found a cafe that was open and had breakfast, before aiming for an aquatic theme park some distance out of town. As we drove, we found a street closed off with a fleamarket so we decided to stop and trawl through it for a couple of hours.
Then we went back to the Centrale Duomo for a daytime viewing and some gelato before heading back to the airport to catch a plane back to Edinburgh.
All in all, it was the best weekend and I am very keen to revisit Venice.