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.