It was our last full day in Italy and the group had the choice of staying in Milan or going to Lake Como. I chose to go to Lake Como. Our departure there was a little stressful. We all walked to the metro together and rode it to Milano Centrale. In Milano Centrale, we bought train tickets to Varenna. By the time everyone that was going had bought their ticket, it was 8:06 and our train would depart at 8:20. This is where things got a little stressful. We all raced upstairs to look at the departing trains to find our platform. The tickets we buy usually have a train number on them, but since this was one of the local trains, we didn’t have the luxury of figuring it out by train number. We had to look for where each local train would go. Thankfully, we had Dr. Permenter with us because she was the one that was able to find out which train we needed to be on and we all hopped on, just in the nick of time. We were almost at our stop, Varenna, when we were starting to see the Swiss Alps and some of Lake Como. We had finally arrived at our destination and started walking towards the ferry. Once we were close to the ferry, we saw beautiful Lake Como and the Swiss Alps. We stayed in Varenna for a bit doing a little shopping and having photo sessions. Our next stop was Bellagio. When getting off the ferry and into the town, I noticed some steps that lead into the water and told my group that we should sit there for a while, they all agreed. We all sat there enjoying the views and taking our last looks of Italy in. After about an hour or two, we went to a restaurant for some lunch. I had to try their minestrone soup, mostly because I was a little chilly, but it was a must try while in Italy, because they have a yellow broth instead of a brown broth like America does. It had to have been the best soup that I have ever tasted in my life. After lunch, we all decided to move onto our next destination, Como. We had barely made the boat to Como. When we got on, we saw that the entire group was already on the boat. It took about an hour to get to Como from Bellagio. When we arrived, we all decided to find out where the train station was so that we could get our tickets back to Milan. After buying our tickets we went to a park by the Tempio Voltiano. We sat and watched the swans for the last few hours. It was kind of bittersweet at the end of the day because we had seen some breathtaking views of Lake Como from three different towns and it was also our last full day here. We will miss you Italy and we...

Milan is known for being the city of fashion. However, I do not keep up with fashion and I am definitely not a fashionista. So, instead of looking at the next clothing item to buy, I did a spire walk. It was quite interesting to walk up a spiral staircase with hundred sixty nine steps to get to the edge of the roof of the Duomo di Milano. We had an amazing view of the spires from the moment we walked out of the door of the staircase. I think it was even better that we were able to walk up another seventy one steps to be sitting on top of the roof. The view from up here was absolutely breathtaking! Nothing could have made the city more gorgeous, except maybe the removal of all the construction work being done of the Duomo and the buildings nearby. While I didn’t get to go up in the Duomo di Santa Maria and see the entire city of Florence, I was able to climb the Duomo di Milano and see the entire city of fashion. When in Milan, you should visit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and spin the balls of Taurus the Bull. Spinning on his balls three times is said to bring one good luck. This has actually created a divot in the floor. Also, if you are able to do one complete spin without touching your other foot to the ground in this very divot, it is said that you will return to Milan one day. I might not have spun around in the divot three times, I was able to do a complete spin on my right foot without my left touching the ground.