Hi Again -
We’re still rambling on about Milan (Milano). Had to split what might have been the best segment yet, due to the computer server not accepting nine photos. How do you explain us receiving e-mails containing ten photos, yet we can’t send e-mails when we attach nine photos? Just kidding by the way about the Milan segment being the best.
Checkout Keaka’s use of the panorama feature to give you a look at the
square in front of the Duomo. Nice work. Also, a couple of photos that give you a glimpse of the Galleria, the first shopping center ever constructed.
And, an added benefit of being forced to split the great Milan segment into two, is that you get a few more photos of the inside of the cathedral. All credit due Sophia for the fine photography.
As we do far too often, we stopped at a McDonalds on the square. The European (similar to Tokyo and Australia) McDonalds have much more seating than the McDonalds in the U.S. This McDonalds was doing more business than you can imagine. We thought it had to be the highest grossing McDonalds in the world, until we got to the McDonalds in downtown Nice at the end of the trip. The McDonalds food quality was far better in Milan than in France (it’s the meat!). Very few restaurants at any level offer hamburgers. Thus, if so many Europeans are flocking to McDonalds, why aren’t more folks serving hamburgers? We want to open a small little burger joint with the burgers cooking on a spinning wheel grill in the window. We don’t care if it’s Geneva, Milan or Nice. There are plenty of local folks and tourists. There seems to be a market for burgers.
There were a couple (at least) of street car lines that looped into the square area (center of Milan). The cars were fascinating (old!!!). I wanted to ride one just for the experience and to get out and see some of the neighborhoods and to see what the real Milan was like, however, time did not permit. One line had street cars that resembled a historic street car on display in Portland from the early 1900s. These streetcars were older than the old streetcars the city of Detroit sold to Mexico City in the late 1950s. We’re talking old and humming along very nicely.
By the way, Milan is well into planning for Expo 2015, a world-wide exposition. There’s much information out there about the Expo. It’s quite an undertaking.
At the end of the day we drove from Milan on past Bergamo and Brescia to Peschiera del Garda where we spent the night, before moving on to Venice the next day. The amount of trucks on the autoroute was amazing! I thought the stretch of I-90/Indiana Turnpike between Chicago and South Bend had lots of traffic and trucks. No match. Marlene estimated there were more trucks than cars (at least as many trucks as cars). It was a 90-minute trip to our stop for the night. The stretch of highway was almost totally lined with industry. Some large factories, but more small industry and distribution centers, many with significant offices. Oh, there were airports. Milan has two commercial airports. We then saw another large airport at Bergamo and another good-sized airport at Brescia. Four significant airports within 90 minutes, in an area with extremely well-developed train travel. Go figure.
We went on to Venice and Nice, which is just around the corner.
The Wilsons
