Our second day in Milan! We were meeting Michaela at the Duomo today for our tour of the top and we had some blue skies peeking out! We stopped in at this cafe to grab some croissants before we walked across the square to meet her.

We met Michaela and headed to the top of the Duomo. You take an elevator to the top and then still have some additional stairs to climb. The intricacy of the construction is overwhelming, it’s difficult to even describe but it was amazing. We had beautiful view of the city, in one photo below you can see the “downtown” of today’s Milan with the skyscrapers.

Today was a day for confirmations inside the Duomo so no tours would be allowed until later on that day. During one portion of our walk on top we were near the cathedral and could hear the children’s voices singing and it was so beautiful.

Normally you have to descent completely by stairs but those stairs enter into the inside of the Duomo, so we rode the elevator down that has a different exit.

Next stop was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which is Italy’s oldest active shopping gallery and it was definitely active today! There was basically a “center” with four legs to choose from with the big name fashion icons you would expect in Italy, Dior, Prada, Louis Vuitton. This was just a quick stop in and we continued on our way.

Teatro alla Scala was our next location on the tour. The Teatro alla Scala was founded, under the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, to replace the Royal Ducal Theatre, which was destroyed by fire on 26 February 1776 and had until then been the home of opera in Milan. There was a practice session just beginning and we got to hear all of the instruments getting tuned up while we were there. Then Michaela took us through the museum portion. If you’re interested in seeing a virtual tour, they have one here.

After we finished, Michaela walked us over to the Starbucks Roastery and we said our goodbyes. She was so very knowledgeable and we were glad we had gone with a private tour for our visit to Milan. We booked with her through a site called Tours by Locals. They have U.S. tour guides as well as international.

We then headed into the former Post Office, now the Starbucks Roastery. It was so big! There are only six Starbucks Reserve Roasteries in the world (Seattle, Shanghai, Milan, New York, Tokyo and Chicago). If you’re a Starbucks fan – here’s a great article about the Roastery in Milan.

We decided to enjoy lunch there in the square where the Duomo was located, it had turned into a beautiful day. We actually went back to the place where we had grabbed our croissants this morning.

Barry and L.J. both got the Zuppa Di Pollo soup, and of course, we got some bruschetta. Barry got lasagna, Brenda a burger, L.J. tried two penne variations (first time having pesto sauce) and I had the Ravioli.

Of course, we couldn’t finish our time in Milan without grabbing some gelato to go!

In the Duomo subway stop waiting on our last subway ride of the trip!

Well… here’s where things took a turn. Our route on the subway was only four stops, from the Duomo to Centrale. The subway was super crowded and from stop to stop we got moved around a bit, the four of us (and others) were sharing a pole to help steady ourselves. We got to Centrale and L.J. held up the end of his wallet chain and there was no wallet attached. Then Barry said, oh no, they got mine too! Both had been pickpocketed in that short amount of time without ever knowing it had happened. Barry’s wallet was in his front pocket and L.J. had his wallet on a chain and inside a velcro pocket. During the trip I had looked down and a guy beside me had his jacket over the top of my purse and his hand was under the jacket. I jerked my purse (which was cross body on the front of my hip) over in front of me and then did the same to Brenda’s to make sure hers was secure. I never even thought about the guys. It seemed to be two different guys that were working together. Then they immediately worked their way straight to the Apple Store to charge more than $10,000 on the cards they got between the two of them.

We all were just sick. We tried to find a police officer and the ones we found did not speak English. We finally got one that told us the Office # of the police station within the Train Station and we tried to find it with no luck. We finally went outside and Barry and L.J. continued to lock and cancel cards. Two police officers were walking by and we tried again and fortunately, this time they both spoke English. They told us exactly where to find the office inside the train station and asked us a few questions. They said it was such a problem there and did suggest filing a report. This time we found the office, it was very small with just five seats in the waiting area. Brenda and I sat down outside in the Train Station area and Barry and L.J. got in “line” to get their reports done. It took about two hours of waiting to be seen. There were several other people that came that either had their phones or wallets taken as well. Barry and L.J. had a very nice officer take their statements for the reports and he even took a pic with him once they were done. I mean, it was a part of the trip so we always document!

We tried to look on the bright side, it was the end of the trip and not the beginning. No one had been injured and we were all safe. Brenda and I had our four passports between us, so we could still fly home. We also had a different credit card we could still use.

We went back to collect our luggage from the Hilton. We were planning to take the train from Milano Centrale to the Milan Airport but honestly, we were exhausted mentally and physically so we opted to splurge for a car service. We were down to only the Euros I had, which was maybe $25 and we needed to tip the concierge, the bellman and our car service. We confirmed we could tip him via credit card and gave our remaining Euros to the Hilton employees. Add that to the bright side, we wouldn’t need to exchange any Euros back to US when we got home!

Checking in at the Sheraton at the airport.

Dinner at the hotel restaurant was a perfect choice. This was supposed to be the relaxing end to our trip and farewell dinner and we really did try to do that, though our conversation did drift to the events of the day a few times.

The restaurant was really quite beautiful inside

Barry had the soup of the day and then a burger with fries. Brenda had the low temperature chicken breast with truffle flavored mashed potatoes, meat jus and confit chanterelle mushrooms. L.J. had the lasagna and the filet, I had the Orecchiette and the filet. Then dessert was Tiramisu and cheesecake.

We were blessed that today’s speed bump was our only negative of the trip. Our amazing days greatly outweighed this group that we encountered. Time to get some rest and get ready for our flights back to North Carolina!