April 2009 Family Events

As mentioned in our previous blog entry, after a short stop in Milan, we continued our way to Cluj to spend a few days of our short Easter Holidays together with our families.

2009 - Husvet

(Once I happened to mention to my manager about our Easter Monday's tradition when the guys, gathered in groups, visit the girls in turn, each waiting for the guys with food, drinks and colored eggs. He, my manager became then very jealous of this tradition, since not in his wildest dream could he imagine that he would be allowed to leave his wife at home and go with his buddies to visit a dozen women and furthermore drink all day long...)
-------------------------
Next weekend we celebrated Zoli's birthday. Apparently I (Zoli) have been very good the last year...see the present I got behind me on the picture below.
<><>

From Csaladi Esemenyek- Szuletesnapok

Couple of days in Milan...

As usually, we were planning to spend our Easter Holidays together with our families ...
searching for the best low-cost flight connections between Zurich and Cluj, we found a good deal for a Wizzair flight from Milan directly to Cluj. As we have never been in Milan before, we decided to use this opportunity to visit the 'city of fashion'.

First we took a nice walk to the Milan Dome. On the way to the Cathedral, we passed by the statue of Leonardo da Vinci on the Piazza della Scala. La Scala is perhaps the most well-known opera house in the world, and ... we could hardly figure out where it was. It was one of the buildings on the Piazza, but we wouldn't have known it if there hadn't been people taking photos of the building.
Then we walked though the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, which is a covered walking area with shops and art deco cafés everywhere:


On the opposite side of the gallery, we found the famous Milan Dome, a massive structure, incredibly huge and impressive. Unfortunately we didn't spot the stairs leading up to the top of the roof, so on the first day we only admired the Cathedral from the Piazza della Duomo and inside.

From EUROPE - ITALY - Milan

... next we walked by the Sforzesca Castle, but we didn't go inside the castle because it houses museums and we didn't have enough time for museum visits.




















In the evening we were heading towards the so called "I navigli' or "The Canals", which was told to be the best place for live music, pubs and restaurants. Well, we did really enjoy our dinner in a nice restaurant we have found, although the area seemed to be a little less characteristic and "special" as described on many travellers' blogs.
-----------
Upon return from Cluj, while Zoli was already sitting on the train back to Zurich (I was flying a few hours later to Brussels), I had an attempt of visiting Leonardo's famous "Last Supper" in the Santa Maria Della Grazie, but without a reservation at least one week ahead there was no chance getting inside the Dome (although the place did not seem to be busy it all... ) so I had to content myself with a fine Italian ice cream instead (which, by the way, was far away from the best ice cream I ever had - - - at my favorite ice cream stand in Lugano ;-))

You can find our full Milan Photo Album here.