When my Sicilian daughter-in-law Lisa asked us to meet her family over Christmas in her hometown, we jumped at the idea of Christmas in Italy. This wouldn’t be our first time spending the holiday in Sicily, but this one would be decidedly different, as the last time was in 2021 when Rich was segueing from a walker to a wheelchair. It was a bittersweet time, and we knew his ALS was cementing this as our last family trip. We did all we could that trip, but there is only so much you can do in towns built of stone and marble thousands of years ago when wrestling with mobility issues.

So this time would be different. I knew we would think about him a lot, but I also knew that this trip was, like so much of this past year, a turning point for the family.

We didn’t fly straight to Sicily, because, frankly, the airlines make that difficult (and expensive). So we needed to pick another city to fly in and out of, one which was easy to use as our “middleman” for the jaunt to Catania, the main airport in Sicily. We chose Milan, a city we’d not yet experienced, and one known as perhaps the most “Christmassy” of the Italian cities.

As always, I like to fly overnight to Europe, and we arrived at 945 am Italian time (245am back home in Minnesota). We had napped a bit on the plane, but it’s never quite enough. Nevertheless, the gal s always to stay up until 10pm. Boy did we surpass that…

We headed to our hotel, The Street Milan Duomo. One of the reasons I picked this particular hotel was because I could use my Chase Ultimate Reward points. Reviews and location were the other main criteria. I would absolutely stay here again! The staff was amazing. They utilized WhatsApp to communicate, checking in with me before and during the trip, asking what I needed, and how things were going, offering suggestions, and just generally being friendly and helpful. They even reached out after we checked out to wish us a Buon Natale!

The location, as I mentioned, was great. We were less than a minute’s walk from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a very upscale shopping mall that is equal parts fashion mecca and Instagram hotspot, and the starting point for almost all of our walking expeditions.

It’s shaped oddly like a cross, with four open-ended wings meeting under a grand cupola, almost like a house of worship for the beautiful people frequenting it. Fashion models were everywhere, and everyone looked their best as they walked by windows for the likes of Prada, Louis Vuitton, Ferrari, and Chanel.

The Galleria was created to be a promenade, and Google Maps sent us through it on almost every adventure. Our first stop was a visit to the Duomo di Milano, set up by Amira, one of the outstanding staff at our hotel. As my kids will tell you, I cannot resist a good church. For me, it has little to do with religion — or, at least, my own. To me, old churches are art, architecture, history, and sociology, all rolled into one. I like to imagine the people who built it, worshipped in it, the politics that created them, the familial dynasties, minor and major, created and destroyed within the walls.

One of the things that sets the Milan Duomo apart from others I have visited is you actually get to walk on the roof. It truly is the best viewpoint of Milan. Purportedly this is the best place in the city to catch a sunset, but it was a drizzly day, so we weren’t treated with that experience. In fact, when we descended, they were stopping tours as the temperature was dropping so they worried the roof would become too slippery. I will visit again on a future trip and try to catch the sunset!

On the inside we were privy to a special treat: that night was the annual Christmas concert, so the choir and musicians were rehearsing. Hearing that kind of music, in that kind of setting, is a soul-stroking experience.

Visually, my favorite thing was the unique stained glass. Each brilliantly colored panel contained its own intricate story, as they were collectively intended to be an entire bible for those who could not read. We later learned (on a food tour, no less!) that the windows were colored with saffron!

Speaking of saffron; we were hungry. I did a ton of research (as I do for every trip), but I let the girl take the reins for this first meal. She knew my basic rules: never go to a restaurant with staff outside beckoning business off the street, never go to one with big laminated picture menus outside, and always try to go a few streets away from a major tourist attraction. We tried that and found a cute place, but alas, the food was not all that great (risotto in a taco shell?).

But it took the edge off our hangries, and fueled us for more sightseeing before it was time to prepare for our last stay-awake push.

We had already asked the hotel staff to make us dinner reservations at a restaurant they recommended, so we walked around as long as we could before we stumbled our travel-weary brains and bodies back to our rooms. We unpacked and organized, then allowed ourselves a one-hour lay down before heading out for our 8pm dinner at DVCA.

The place was stunning, and we were the only English speakers in the room — always a positive sign when traveling to a different country. It felt heavenly to sit and relax over our wine and food. I can still taste that duck and those artichokes…

After dinner I was determined to find a bar I’d read about, so we braved the drizzly weather and marched on, enjoying the almost deserted streets (the people of Milan were much more concerned about the 45-degree temps than we were).

We arrived in Chinatown, the neighborhood home of La Chiesetta (“Little Church”), the bar we sought. “Little Church” is a deconsecrated, 18th-century Gothic church. It is a tiny bar, but it is big on character. To that point, we ordered absinthe-flavored cocktails, and enjoyed next to a gin-bottle Christmas tree, while we admired the sinning disco-ball cross overhead.

Actually, I should say, I enjoyed the absinthe drinks. Frankie did not. She handed me hers and ordered something else. I took one for the team (I actually liked the licorice taste), as we soaked up the atmosphere (oh — and the staff and guests are super cool and welcoming. Go here for sure!), before agreeing that, at 1145pm, we had beaten the “stay awake until 10pm” goal and decided to head back to the hotel.

However…

On the way home, we passed a karaoke bar.

We stopped in and made new friends. They were celebrating a birthday and invited us to join them. Bottles were popped, fireworks candles were lit, and Frankie was asked to sing.

The next thing we knew, we were leaving them behind, protesting our “early” departure, and we were meandering through the streets of Milan, looking for dogs to pet on our way back to our now longed-for beds.

Lights out? 4am. Overachievers!

FYI Apple watch totals for the day: walked 15, 949 steps or 6.18 miles and 11 flights of stairs.

There was no sleeping late the next morning, as we had 11am tour tickets to honor. The hotel’s breakfast service was unique to us: you ordered it the night before, just like room service, but you could have it delivered or eat it in the rooftop cafe, which is what we chose. So glad we did! The view was stunning: as you gazed over the tiled rooftops, glowing in the morning sun, the Alps were beautifully framed by the surrounding buildings. It made the prosciutto, cheese, croissants, and apricot juice (my new obsession) even more delicious!

Well-fueled, we laced our shoes for another full-footed day and headed west towards the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie. A stunning church in its own right, this convent for Dominican friars, founded in the 15th century, is the home of Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper. While we awaited our designated entry time, we explored the Basilica. The first thing that impressed me, oddly, was the beautiful offering candles. Usually, they are in just one color of glass, but these were in a variety that made me think of the Duomo’s brilliant stained glass, and I was captivated. Odd that such a simple touch would draw me in, but it did.

The walls were adorned with stunning frescoes that were almost like appetizers for the main course (yes, I know — pardon the pun). This is a neighborhood church, and the locals were worshipping around us. Every time I am lucky enough to visit Europe, I am awed by the (luck) these people have that these are the places in which they get to worship. I am not a religious person by any means, but I find these ancient places more moving and spiritual, perhaps because they are inhabited by centuries of human stories.

One story we learned that made even a non-believer pause was about the Last Supper. In 1943, the Allies bombed Milan heavily to force an Italian surrender. A bomb landed 80 feet away from the fresco. The church was heavily damaged, and walls around the mural collapsed, but the wall remained standing. Dust covered, but intact. A miracle?

After our visit, we retraced our steps. We had rushed to make our tour, regretfully not being able to linger at the beautiful and intriguing shop windows we had passed. Now, we wanted to rectify that!

Milan is known as a fashion capital, and with good reason. It is also just a cool place to shop in general. Everywhere we saw holiday decorations and Christmas foodstuffs like the famous Italian Panettone cake. We stopped into hotel lobbies and restaurants, gift shops, clothing, and home goods stores. I even found an FAO Schwartz store, something I hadn’t seen in years, which was very fun. On our way back to the hotel we were able to spend some sun-filled time in the plaza by the Duomo, as opposed to the previous day’s grey and wet excursion.

After some downtime and regrouping at the hotel, we headed south to a new neighborhood, the Navigli.

This lively neighborhood features some of Milan’s canals. Milan was once known as a city of water, with miles of canals (Navigli) connecting the land-locked city to major rivers to increase and encourage trade. Now only the ones in the Navigli district remain above ground, and restaurants, bars, music venues, and shops line their banks.

We were in the area for a food tour (which is always a good idea when you visit a new city or country!). After much back-and-forth research, I settled on the Eating Milan: Navigli Food & Drinks Tour. The link I posted will take you to the Trip Advisor site, where you will also find my review. This was a great tour! Giuseppe, our host, married the history of the city and its food with a great overview of some of the culture’s cuisine highlights. Our group of six in particular swooned over the carpaccio at Chunk, and it is very high on my list of places to eat next time I am in town! And, as one who doesn’t really like Tiramisu (I know, I know), the reconstructed version at Mascherpa just may have converted me.

After the tour ended, our new friends Sam and Donny from Ohio joined us on our walk back to the city center, where we decided to have drinks at Savini Milano 1867 in the Galleria. I’d honestly been so enamored of the floral patterned suits the servers wore that I couldn’t wait to get in there! The first bartender we met didn’t speak English, so that was interesting. We tried to make it work with my piddling 8th grade French, and Frankie’s pretty good Spanish, but cocktail selections were definitely getting lost in translation (although he and I understood each other perfectly when I said champagne!). Another server was called, and we got down to business.

It was a great end to a really fun day, except for one curious thing. We had already run across this in another restaurant and quickly discovered the odd music choices were not isolated to that one place. Evidently, the Milanese had a quirky love of taking American music and making very weird, and not necessarily good, covers of them. Case in point: a not-great female jazz singer doing a loungy rendition of the Red Hot Chili Peppers “Californication.”

Maybe not the best musical styling I’ve ever heard, but it made for a fun memory!

Today’s totals: 32,116 steps or 12.62 miles walked and 12 flights of stairs climbed.