Milano

When you take the subway from Milan's train station, Milano Centrale, to Piazza Duomo prepare yourself for an  architectural delight. Entering the piazza from the Metro you'll be looking directly at Duomo di Milano, Milan's cathedral.  Piazza Duomo is the center of the city; all streets radiate from this central location. It was drizzling rain when we emerged, but we had reached our destination: Italy.  We would be on the peninsula for seventeen days.  Why not begin in the industrialized north, in Milano, the symbol of that industry? It is the second largest city in the country, with a population of over eight million, and is the center of commerce and  industry.

We had directions to our hotel. Unfortunately, rarely is there any standardized street signage in Italy. Building numbers aren't necessarily sequential, and sometimes street names change when they pass through an intersection. Also, streets and plazas will have the same name but will be preceded by either "piazza" or "via". These factors, coupled with the usual language problems, made finding our hotel, which was "an easy walk from the Metro", less than simple. But, we found it on a narrow street probably twelve feet wide including the pedestrian lanes.  The hotel door was flush with the street so that from the door of the hotel you were only one step from oncoming traffic. (I'm not being critical of Italian cities.  If it works for them, so be it!) Our other misfortune was that we had left our itinerary at home, along with our hotel and train reservations, and our Eurail passes. Claudette had made a frantic call from New York for a neighbor to FedEx them to us. It was an angst creating event. We settled into our room and then went out for pizza and to explore.

The Duomo di Milano is the second largest church in Italy and the fifth largest in the European Union. The piazza was brimming with tourists; tourists taking pictures, tourists staring up at the facade, tourists gawking, tourists appearing lost, and we were a part of it all. It truly is an awesome structure, perhaps due to its French architects. With multiple spires, its dome is not obvious like most Italian cathedrals.  We entered the nave.  The church is cruciform. Many churches are cross-shaped. The huge columns are eighty feet tall. It is, as all cathedrals, filled with gilded statues and ornamental artwork. The body of some cardinal long since deceased lies in a glass enclosure, and candles lit by worshipers illuminate the darkness. In the apse we saw a small red light high on the wall.  According to the walking tour we were listening to on our smartphones the light marks the storage spot for one of the nails used  on the cross of Christ's crucifixion. This spectacular cathedral took six hundred years to complete.  The American writer, Mark Twain, was quite enamored with it.

Close by the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a truly unique shopping mall.  It's cruciform as well, with walls over one hundred fifty feet tall and an iron and glass vaulted roof. Construction began in 1864.  The architect,  Giuseppe Mengoni, unfortunately fell to his death from the scaffolding a year prior to the completion of the galleria. It was virtually destroyed by bombing in WWII but now houses the creme de la creme of shops following its restoration. Here you will find Prada, Gucci, Armani, Versace, and many more. It is the land of big bucks shopping, or rather big euros shopping. The floor is of beautifully inlaid marble. After a little window shopping we noticed a crowd gathered in one part of the galleria. In the center of the crowd we saw a young man spinning around on his heel. Claudette grabbed my elbow as we navigated through the crowd for a closer look. "I know what it is," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" I answered.

"He is spinning around with his heel on the Bull of Turin for good luck," she said with that thrill she gets from telling me about something I don't know.

"So what's the Bull of Turin?" I asked.

"In this galleria are the coat of arms of four cities, and Turin is one," she said then added, "and the one with the bull is Turin! By the way, you must put your foot on the bull's testicles for luck!"

"I'll bet PETA hasn't heard about that!" I knew I had to take a spin. I waited my turn and placed my heel on that most sensitive part of the male anatomy and began to turn around. I took a couple of turns and started to walk away when an Italian woman yelled at me. 

"Si deve girare intomo tre volte! Si deve girare intomo tre volte!

Somebody in the crowd yelled, "She said you must turn around three times."

And so I did. And then Claudette did her spin also. We have been waiting for the good luck. 

The next morning, upon awakening, I looked out our window to see a FedEx truck in the street; yes, our itinerary,  Eurail passes, and travel documents had arrived from the Creek. So maybe there was something to that spinning around on the bull. After breakfast of brioche, yogurt, and cappuccino we were on our way to see more of the second largest city in Italy. 

The Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci is not easy to find. We rode the Metro to get to that area of the city where the museum was located. Once again we were befuddled by the Italian system of numbering buildings. There was very little signage for this large museum. The lines were short. I knew once I saw the huge steam engine linked to an electric generator that I was in the right place.  We climbed a stairway to a second level where there were display scale models of many of Leonardo da Vinci's machines. They were large exquisite models.  Many had the inventor's drawing displayed nearby.  The most complicated piece was the powered loom.  Noticeably missing was the multi-barreled cannon and battle tank. Throughout this part of the museum there were many displays of scientific discovery and technological advancements from radio to computer.  There are classrooms for structured learning as well.

There are other buildings in this museum complex which was once a monastery. In the train building, which has a roof like a train station, there are steam engines and street and trolley cars.

Next door is and even larger building housing a ship. Yes, a ship, a schooner, with masts reaching the ceiling. There is a two-man submarine and airplanes and a helicopter. One particular airplane I had not seen before was an early British jet design built by the Italians in 1950.   The building also houses the bridge of an Italian ocean liner. Outside this building are three jet fighter planes, two built under U.S. license and the other Italian, a Fiat, from the 1950's. Also outside is an Italian submarine. Viewing the inside of the submarine requires an additional ticket. We've seen a number of submarines so not seeing the interior of this one was not a big deal. 

Or next attraction to visit was Milan's castle. We like castles. Castello Sforzesco is Milan's 14th century castle built for defense. Today it houses several museums and an armory. Entering the castle is free, but a ticket is required for the museums.  We chose to buy a ticket for the museums, with our primary objective being Michelangelo's last masterpiece. But, it was not to be.  That exhibit was closed.  However, such things are not uncommon. We were disappointed, but there are several good museums within the castle walls.  A musical instrument museum and a decorative arts museum are beautiful and informative. There is also a display of tapestries. It seems to have been a common practice to design the tapestry in Italy but have it manufactured in Flanders. Of course my favorite part of the castle was the armory.  There is a good collection of arms and armor from the spear to primitive firearms. I thought it was interesting to note that as weapons improved, body armor decreased. It is a good collection, not on par with the armory in the palace in Madrid, but still quite good. 

On our way back to our hotel we looked at some ruins  of the Romans. We had dinner our last night in a restaurant near the hotel. It was great. Food is expensive in Italy. You order by courses. Each course will be from eight euros up. But the food is outstanding.  After dinner we decided to get a gelato. I was pessimistic about gelato.  I had been told how great it was so many times, I had convinced myself that it could not be better than ice cream.  How could anything with less butter fat be better?  I don't know how they do it, but they do. It is better! We were only a few blocks from Piazza di Duomo. The streets were wet from a light rain, and lights presented a symphony of reflected color. It was great walking along, window shopping, people watching, and munching a caffe gelato with your best girl.  Life is good.

The next morning we caught our train to Venice. 

Escape from Lido

"Is it four o'clock already?" I asked groggily as the phone rang.

"Sure is," she said, removing the receiver from the phone, " We have an early train to catch."

I dragged myself out of bed and glanced out the open window noting the deserted street below.

We we in the Hotel Cristallo Venezia  on the Island of Lido, about fifteen minutes across the water from Venice's Grand Canal. Lido is a natural island, unlike Venice, and has a beach, airport, and wheeled vehicles. It also forms a barrier from the Adriatic Sea. We had spent a delightful few days in Venice, but we had a 6:15 train to catch for Rimini.

"Come on now! We don't have time to waste.  The first vaporetto comes at 4:56, and we have to be on it to get  our train!" She referred to the water bound bus which moved people around the city built on pine and oak pilings driven into the lagoon floor.

Twenty minutes later we had our backpacks on and were in the hotel lobby. There was no desk clerk, and we had checked out the night before to save time in departing. I placed the key on the counter as Claudette headed for the door. I was feeling proud of getting up on our own so quickly.

"I can't get the door open.  I think it's locked!" she said with a hint of concern in her voice.

I grabbed the handle and attempted to open the open the door without success. "Hit the bell on the counter," I said.  The bell rang loudly.  We expected to see a sheepish desk clerk appear.  "Ring it again!" I said.  She did, but the sound fell only on our ears.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"Call 'em!" I said, then added sheepishly, "That won't do any good.  The phone will just ring here, and there is nobody to answer it but  us.  Maybe there is another way out..."

"Where?"

"I don't know, but I think there is a patio on the other side of the dining room," I said as I walked through the doorway into the dining area where we had had breakfast. One wall had a ceiling to floor curtain. I opened the curtains to find sliding glass doors beyond through which I could see the outdoor dining area. I slid the doors open and entered the patio in the cool morning air. The dining area was surrounded by a vine covered fence two meters high.  No gate. I kicked one of the chairs against the fence in frustration. What next?

I went back into the lobby area. Claudette had found a key and was trying it in the door. No luck.

"We have to get out of here.  We can't wait for someone to come and open up.  We have reservations for that train with our Eurorail passes. We have to make it!" she said with desperation in her voice. "What about the burglar alarm? We've ransacked this place and no alarm goes off...why? Maybe someone would come..."

"Hey, don't think about it.  We don't need to be confronted by the Italian police now!" I added quickly.

I went behind the counter. The desk was a mess; she had already gone through everything on the desk and all the unlocked drawers. "There's gotta be a key here somewhere," I said.  I don't know if I believed there was a key or was trying to convince myself that there was. Behind a stack of papers and some magazines on a bookshelf I found a small metal cabinet mounted on the wall. The door was slightly ajar. The grey metal door swung open easily.  There was a row of hooks about seven inches long and upon them hung keys.  There were individual keys and several keys on keyrings. Keys!

"Hey, I've found some more keys! One of these has gotta work!" I said with new hope in my voice.  "Here try this one!" I said as I tossed a large key across the counter to Claudette at the door. I rounded the counter with a handful of keys as she tried to get the key into the door with shaky hands.

"Better let me try," I said as I elbowed her out of the way at the door. I methodically tried each key with no success. They were all either too big or too small or would enter the lock and not turn the tumblers. "Are there any more keys there?" I asked in desperation. Claudette was behind the counter now.

"I don't think...Oh, here's an old one," she said as she tossed it to me.

It fit the lock.  I turned it gently with anticipation. To my disbelief the door opened.

We wasted no time in congratulating ourselves.  We had a train to catch. At a rapid clip we walked nearly a kilometer to the vaporetto dock. My injury from a few days earlier in my right leg was throbbing as we passed the pizza parlor, gelato shop, and newsstand. We could hear the boat approaching as we bought our tickets from the vending machine.  Of the half dozen people boarding we were the only travelers. The other people were on their way to work. Water traffic was slight. Unlike the norm there were many seats available on the boat, so we settled in for the forty-five minute ride. It was like riding a commuter train with many stops on either side of the canal. The evening before we had taken this ride on the No. 2 boat to see the Grand Canal illuminated at night. Many of the lights were still on in the misty morning light. The ride was a bit smoother due to the lack of traffic. The crowds of tourists, that blemish on the cityscape, were missing as our boat continued toward the train station and the terminus of this voyage and our visit to Venice.

The dock at the train station was the last stop. We scrambled off the boat and ran for the train. Soon we were aboard the train for Rimini. We finally relaxed in the deeply upholstered seats and enjoyed some coffee and brioche. Soon we would be on a bus to the mountaintop country of San Marino.