Milan: Day 1

After a gorgeous 4-hour train ride that brought us across the Franco-Italian border and through the Alps we arrived in Milan. As I stepped off the train the air was sucked out of my lungs as a rush of freezing cold air hit me. Here was Milan, the so-called commercial capital of Italy. We purchased some 24-hour metro passes and headed toward the commercial center. Emerging from the underground we found ourselves in a huge square completely decked out for Christmas. On one end of the square was the Duomo of Milan, one of the largest cathedrals in the world. A Christmas concert was in full swing on another side and a huge shopping center formed a third side of the square. Rarely have I ever been as cold as I was walking around Milan that afternoon/evening. We checked into our hostel later that evening, lucking out on the fact that we had just enough cash to pay for it (no cards accepted, we literally only had cents left). After exploring the city that evening we came back to the hostel, bought pizzas (our first meal in 12 hours) and made ready to leave early the next morning for Torino.