We arrived in Milan in the rain but that didn't stop us from getting out amongst it immediately. We checked into our hotel and Ian and Carmel went off to check into an AirBNB. Within a few minutes Carmel had sent us a photo of Il Duomo, the 3rd largest church in Christiandom. Apparently it was halfway between our hotel and their apartment.

We went straight out to meet them at Il Duomo and then went off to join a tour of Milan. This tour was advertised as a small group tour, but when we got there it was a full sized bus with 50 people on it. They took us first back to Il Duomo and we went inside the church. It is pretty impressive with a massive amount of stained glass and statuary. Apparently there are 3,500 statues in and on this cathedral.

After Il Duomo, we walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele 2, which is a 200 year old shopping mall with a magnificent glass roof and dome. On the other side of the galleria is Piazza Leonardo, with a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci in the centre and La Scala opera house across the road. We went into the opera house and into one of the boxes to see a rehearsal of the next opera.

Then it was back onto the bus to drive to a convent called Santa Maria della Grazie, which is where Da Vinci's famous mural of The Last Supper is kept. Leonardo painted this mural in 1495 when the convent was a monastery and the painting is on the wall of the monks' former dining room. Over the years it was neglected, and at one stage the room was used as a stable for the French troops during the Napoleonic wars. During World War 2 it was covered with hay bales to keep it safe.

The tour ended there and we went back to the area around Il Duomo to find somewhere to have dinner. We found a small restaurant called Papa Francesco and had a fantastic meal in there. The owner, Paolo, introduced himself to us and he was a real character. Apparently his grandfather started the restaurant and then his father took it over and now Paolo runs it. His son is working there as well. At one stage he came out with a trolley that had a huge cheese wheel on it. He lit up some vodka in a ladle and started pouring it between two ladles and then mixed it in the wheel with a macaroni pasta dish and then served it up to some other patrons. We vowed that we would return to try it.

We started the next morning by climbing the 167 steps to the top of Il Duomo. The cathedral is just as spectacular on the roof as it is inside. It is dripping with gothic architecture and statues. The views of Milan from up there were also spectacular.

After this Ian and I went to a museum housed in Castle Sforza, an ancient castle built in the 1300's. The girls went shopping. The museums were great. One was a musical instrument museum with some very interesting old instruments. There was also an exhibition of all of the furniture through the centuries kept in the castle and also the paintings. We had a much more productive day than the girls who bought nothing.

We went back to Paolo's restaurant for lunch to try the macaroni and it was absolutely delicious. Paolo had us in stitches telling us about how he deals with bad reviews on Trip Adviser. Basically if he gets a bad review he tells the customers off. One customer wrote a review without even going into the restaurant. He told one customer who was celebrating his anniversary that he should enjoy it because he probably won't be having another one! Anyway, we failed to see how anyone could give the restaurant a bad review. The food was amazing and the service impeccable.

After lunch we walked around Milan enjoying the atmosphere. There was a festival in the city celebrating the Italian Mountain Infantry Corps, know as the Alpini. There were thousands of men wearing the traditional mountain cap with the feather in it. They were inundating the city singing, playing instruments, etc. In the galleria there were a bunch of them giving out sugar cubes soaked in grappa. Lidia and I both tried one. Lidia couldn't get through hers. They were very strong.

That evening we walked to a district called Navigli which has two canals lined with restaurants and bars. We were recommended to go here by a waiter at our hotel and he explained that the locals love it there. It was buzzing and we did a bar crawl where each bar would deliver a decent antipasti with each drink order.

We had a drink at one bar and then passed by a shop selling arancini and ricotta filled cannoli, so of course we had to try that.

At one bar there were a bunch of Alpini on the next table and Ian decided he would like to impress them by yodelling for them. There were Indian vendors trying to sell the usual cheap rubbish, one of which was a microphone that distorts your voice. Ian took one of these microphones and started yodelling into it. It sounded like a bout of dysentery going through a cattery and I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.

The next day we spent the day shopping and exploring Milan, including a massive park. There were Alpini all over the city drinking, singing, etc. There were several music bands of them walking around and they were fantastic. We watched one of them play Despacito in the galleria.

For lunch we went to a pizzeria that was recommended to us. We wanted to share two pizzas, but they insisted we had to buy one dish each, so we ordered a salad and some fries even though we didn't want them. The pizza wasn't that great anyway and the waitress insisted on a tip, which Ian left them. The first time we have been asked for a tip in Italy, where it isn't their custom.

Our wanderings in the afternoon took us back through the Sforza castle. In the castle grounds was a group of Alpini singing a capella and it was a beautiful sound. Very moving.

Lidia and I had a drink at a bar right in front of Il Duomo and a group of Alpini were on the next table. Two of them were playing piano accordions and they were singing Italian songs. Lidia recognised some of the songs from years ago at the Bell Park Sports Club. One of them was a song her grandfather used to sing to her grandmother, and this made her quite emotional.

That night we went over to Ian and Carmel's apartment for dinner and a few drinks and said goodbye to the magnificent Milan.

Now for a quick list of all the things Ian has lost so far during the trip. He left his passport at the Vodaphone store in Verona and had to go and get it the next morning. He left his phone on a park bench in Bellagio and luckily found it where he dropped it. He lost Carmel's $400 rain jacket and later found it stuffed into a pocket of his backpack and then lost his sunglasses in Milan somewhere. I'm waiting for him to leave his head somewhere.