Earlier in the day, between eating lunch and heading for the Brera district, Ross and I had tried to catch tickets for the movie Tron...(yes they play movies in English in Europe). The theatre near the Duomo did not have it in English.
While at the hotel, after the pastry break, Ross and I asked the desk guy to call to the other two theatres in Milan to see if perhaps they were showing Tron in English. Seeing the movie had been the major point on our agenda for the evening. Sadly, neither theatre had the movie in English.
Since the pastries didn't really curb our appetite for dinner, and there were still things I wanted to see before leaving Milan, we were only momentarily off-put by not getting tickets to the movie. He and I left the hotel for our last assault on Milan.
I wanted to check out a few more churches, the Palazzo Reale, the piazza Babila, and the via Orefici. All of the things were gathered around the Duomo plaza anyway, and we HAD to see the duomo one last time before we left Milan anyway. From the Cordusio metro stop we began our stroll down via Orefici (a medieval street) which supposedly showed the medieval/renaissance influence in Milan. We were pleasantly surprised to be walking down a market street. Tents lined the street showing artisan works and bursting with food and wine. Ross and I agreed that we'd take our time checking out all the tents. He stopped in an olives tent and tried a huge, bright green olive. His face didn't screw up at the taste so I assume it was an agreeable olive. My eyes fell on more chocolate and pastry tents, cheese tents, sausage/salami tents, etc. Some other people would have been interested in the tourist tents overflowing with 'I Love Milan' t-shirts and magnets. Not us, we were too into the food. One non-food tent filled with wood work did catch our eye. Beautiful inlaid wooden chess sets made us stop to appreciate them. We meandered through the market, eventually exiting into the Duomo plaza.
I thought the two churches I wanted to see (Satiro & Fedel) would be pretty and lit up. We found the first nestled between commercial buildings, almost hidden from view. From there we passed the Palazzo Reale toward the piazza Babila. Although we'd technically already seen the Babila plaza since the second H&M location was located there, I still wanted to go back and see the entire plaza. Coming back toward the Duomo, in order to hit up the second church I wanted to see, it was necessary to go down the side street next to the Rinascente department store. As Ross and I walked down the street we saw an open door with line of people. Listed next to the door were the names of all the Rinascente 7th story restaurants. Were the Rinascente restaurants open even though the department store was closed? We stepped through the doorway to find two elevators which delivered us into the restaurant level of the store. It WAS open!!! Just to see our dinner options we explored all the restaurant's menus....I was agreeable to anything honestly. I was starving. Ross was a bit pickier and wanted something truly Italian before leaving Italy the next morning.
One more touristy thing to see still, we departed the Rinascente, keeping it in mind for dinner, then continued down the street toward the Fedel church. On the way, we passed a couple pizzaria type restaurants. Ross was more interested than I so again we stopped to view the menus. When we finally reached the church I was highly disappointed, but didn't say so out loud. Instead of a pretty church, an intimidating structure loomed over the tiny square in front of it. Dominated by gigantic columns and quite uninviting, the building didn't resemble any church I'd ever seen. Nonetheless I have to admit it did have a certain powerful beauty to it. My hunger kept the church visit quite short, and we could only see the outside anyway, then it was off to dinner finally. Ross let me choose the place and I ended up choosing something inside the Rinascente. There was nowhere I'd rather be our last night in Milan but sitting level with the Duomo spires. We dined at the Maio restaurant.
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