Milan: Philly?

This past weekend my roommates Lydia, Erin, Ruby, and I were in Milan. As soon as we left the train station, we were all caught off guard by how similar it was to cities in the United States. The buildings were a lot taller, there were much less cobblestones, there were distinct neighborhoods that all stemmed from the city center, and there were a lot of bike lanes.

We went inside the Duomo and got to go up on the roof terrace. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was definitely one of the biggest churches I’ve been in. It was architecturally very different than the churches in Rome, it has a lot more Gothic influence.

Once we left the Duomo, we went shopping, a must do activity in Milan. After that we headed back to the Airbnb. We were all exhausted so we ended up getting dinner delivered to the Airbnb.

We got up at 9 the following morning to get on a train to Crema. Most people are probably not familiar with Crema but it is a town outside of Milan and is where a lot of the movie Call Me By Your Name was filmed. My roommate Ruby and I love that movie so we wanted to take the opportunity to go to Crema and see where it was filmed. Erin came with us but was not quite as invested as we were. When we first got off the train, we came across this market in this park, all of us ended up buying something there and it was really fun. It was so pretty seeing all of the colorful leaves on the ground.

We saw one of the piazzas they filmed in and saw the actual bikes they rode in the movie.

After spending a few hours in Crema, we got back on the train. Erin headed back to Milan while Ruby and I got off at another stop to go see another spot where the movie was filmed. It was in the middle of nowhere, we probably saw 10 cars go by us the entire time we were in that area and there was no one anywhere near where the pond was.

For our final day in Milan, we slept in a bit because we were meeting our Airbnb host to lock up our luggage for a few hours at 11:30am. Afterwards we headed out in the rain and visited a castle in Milan, Sforzesco Castle. There was a drawbridge and a moat. It was super cool and was different than anything I have seen before.

This weekend trip was probably our least planned out so far. We didn’t really have have plans for what we were going to do but it ended up being a very enjoyable weekend and I’m glad I took the time to go visit Crema.

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The safety and security of Drexel students is a priority for the University. As part of the efforts to support Drexel students that are studying abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of Global Engagement has conducted a rigorous review of programming and provided additional support to participating students with customized pre-departure orientations and regular check-ins during the required self-isolation period and the term.