Today was our first proper day in Italy. We get breakfast included with the hotel and Paul absolutely wiped it out. We still did not have the ticket numbers for Trenitalia, so we went to the train station about 40 minutes early to see if there was anything they could do. After queueing for 20 minutes and talking broken English with someone from Trenitalia they decided there was nothing they could do, even though I had pictures of the tickets and retrieval codes and the total that we paid.
We decided to just get on and try our luck. A man came and checked the tickets and we explained the situation and he was fine.
We got to Milan and it was BOILING. The night before we were watching the BBC World News and it showed Europe. We were looking for the highest temperature and obviously it was Milan. It got up to 40 degrees while we were there. We started walking towards the Duomo cathedral, it was about 2 miles so about halfway through we decided to get the metro because we were dying of heat exhaustion. We got to the platform and waited for the train. We both went to get on but unbeknownst to me, Paul had gotten onto the same carriage but through a different door. I was looking behind me and he was t there so I got off, and then the doors started beeping and the train left - with Paul on it,and me on the platform. I got the next train and got off at the next stop, and he wasn't there either! I guessed he must have gone straight to the destination station so I went there. He was obviously very stressed and annoyed at me for the situation even though I maintain nobody is at fault here, and he should have done as he was told.
So we left the metro station and the cathedral was right in front of us. It was really gorgeous and breath taking. We started walking towards it and then I heard Paul talking behind me. I glanced behind and a group of black men had stopped him and put some bracelet on his wrist,he was trying to get away but they kept saying 'it's good luck, one for your wife too'. Then they came over to me and held my wrist to put one on me. Then they said 'now 5 euro for each of us'. We literally had no cash and these were 3 big black men who could have killed us there and then. Paul found a 2 euro coin and gave it to them but they weren't impressed. They said they could give us change but there was no way we were giving them our only 20€ note. That was absolutely terrifying and we walked off quickly, snapping the cloth bracelets off as soon as possible. This ruined the cathedral for us so we decided to go for a drink instead of going in.

We get a discount for the sightseeing red buses with our Interrail so we decided to do that for a few hours. Milan is a lovely city and there were some interesting sights to see. After we did that it was time to go back to the train station as we had a booked train time obviously. The train was late (as usual with Trenitalia trains) and the station was absolutely boiling! We got back to the hotel at about 6:30, and we just ordered room service and watched telly. We were exhausted!