7am came way too early after yesterday's long travel...so the snooze button got used until almost 8; and then the girls only got up after I opened the curtains. Italian breakfast around the corner from the hotel at a little bakery shop named Il Bragosso. Excellente! Seriously, the most awesome frozen caramel coffee smoothie thing you've ever had.

I gave in to Heather's request for a taxi this morning instead of taking the subway (I don't know what she has to complain about, I'm the one doing Atlas carries up and down the stairs of the subway with Maclaren in her stroller). So instead of 3E (E = euro for the rest of this blog) it was 10E for the taxi...but man the AC was nice I have to admit!

Duomo to start the day...WOW! We've seen a lot of impressive buildings around the world, but this is our favorite; what an impressive building! We can totally understand why it took them almost 600 years to build it, it is literally the most beautiful, intricate building we've ever seen. There is literally a sculpture everywhere you look. The most impressive thing about it is that you can walk on the roof; which is the original stone roof (just don't bounce on it too hard...I felt it shake under my weight in certain places). The inside is impressive, but definitely understated compared to the facade. It's an active church so you can't walk through the middle where the parishioners seats are, but the massive height of the ceiling and grand scale of everything including the columns is worth a 10 minute walk through the inside. Even though we aren't Catholic, Heather and Maclaren each lit a candle and said a prayer.

Out the front of Duomo and into the plaza, we are greeted by a man throwing bird seed to the pigeons, who offers Maclaren a handful of seed (great, this is going to cost me a euro), Then he offers a handful to Heather (great another euro)...then all of a sudden there are 3 more guys converging on us, all throwing seed and whistling to the birds, grabbing Heather's arms and holding them out so the pigeons will land in her hand and eat the seed from her hand. Of course I'm trying to snap a picture, while counting the euros racking up, AND keeping my eye on all 4 of these guys and anyone else in the area; can you say "perfect storm of distraction for a nice pick pocketing"? Ok Heather, lets get out of here, I slap 4E in one of the guy's hands and push our way out of the circle. Good photos of nasty pigeons in Heather's hand!

On to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II; probably the most unique shopping mall in the world, its several hundred years old, 4 stories tall, and topped by a massive glass dome and glass arches. Its also home to a bunch of luxury retailers like Louis Vitton and the original Prada store founded in 1913, which warrants a visit.

Its HOT in Milan, and quite muggy.

Into the Napoleone Shopping District, home to more luxury brands and most of the fashion houses, a stop in the house of Chanel lands Heather a nice necklace.

We're out of time in Milan, it's 2pm and we have a train to catch at 3:10, so back to the hotel via the subway to collect our bags. Catching a taxi now isn't so easy, we spent 20 minutes standing at the taxi stand trying to wave one down until finally a couple of cops came strolling by and waved one down for us. 27 minutes until the train leaves, we arrive at the station with no idea where to go, but we manage to make it on the train with 12 minutes to spare which is an eternity in Italian train time, come to find out they are notoriously late.

15 minutes down the track and bad luck is back, as our train stops for no reason in the middle of the country side. 10 minutes later it restarts at a crawl and never gets back up to speed. A couple more unexplained stops, the AC turning off, a few announcement over the speaker system in Italian, and some attempts at communicating with our cabin mate; it's apparent that the train is broken and they are kicking us off at the next stop to catch the next train which is 45 minutes behind, That 45 minutes turns out to be over an hour and a half and the train is nearly full. Luckily I found 1 seat in a cabin for Heather to sit with Maclaren in her lap, while our bags rode in the aisle in the next car over and I rode standing in the un-air-conditioned hallway for the next 2 hours. Instead of arriving in Ventimiglia at 7:15, it's 10:45 and there are no more trains to Nice until tomorrow morning. The Italian cops to the rescue again because there are no train station workers still there, the cops inform us that the train company is chartering a bus to Nice for everyone that was on the train, and it'll be here at 11pm.

A 30 minute bus ride to Nice, a 28E taxi ride across Nice to near our apartment, and 22 steps up to our apartment...its been a LONG day...again.