The Upper Room

Stained glass in the Duomo

Milan (week 34)

After climbing out of the coastal mountains of Liguria, the plains of Lombardy open out like the farmlands of southwestern Ontario.  We stopped for a day in Milan, the second largest city in Italy and, like Genoa, a former capital city full of treasures too numerous to see in a day.  We started our day at 7:45 am, catching the train from our suburban hotel to the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie.  The refectory contains Leonardo Da Vinci's Il Cenacolo (the Upper Room), better known in English as "The Last Supper".  Visits are in small groups (25?) for 15 minutes, and most times are booked months in advance, thus the 9am time for us, having only booked 2 weeks ahead.  Almost none of Leonardo's actual work remains (i.e. paint that he applied himself) because he used an experimental dry paint technique that was very fragile and started falling off as soon as he was finished.  Even with the extensive restoration, the remaining painting is missing much of the detail that you can see in canvas reproductions made in Leonardo's day.  Of course, no pictures of any kind are allowed, so you'll have to check online images to see what it looks like now.

on the roof

After popping into the convent's Basilica, we then proceeded to Milan's second-most famous religious site: the Duomo di Milano, or more formally, the Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente.  Mark Twain described it thus: "They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands."  On the other hand, Oscar Wilde was not impressed (then again, did he like anything?): "The Cathedral is an awful failure. Outside the design is monstrous and inartistic....everything is vile in it."  The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.  Depending on how you measure it, the Duomo is the 5th-largest church in the world.  It is a vast, open space on the inside, because the chapels simply line the walls instead of being recessed into cubbyholes.  The variety of stained glass is fascinating, covering a variety of styles and colours.  We ascended to the roof as well, to get a closer look at the hundreds (thousands?) of carvings, statues, and gargoyles covering the spires.  Unfortunately the day was quite hazy, so we could not really enjoy the view over the city.

Piazza del Castello with the Castello Sforzesco in the background

Back to the ground, we proceeded through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (you know you're in Milan when an intersection has two Prada stores on opposite corners), up the Via Dante to the Castello Sforzesco.  The town's main fortification was originally built starting from 1358, eventually expanding to a star-shaped citadel.  It is now home to numerous museums (ranging from Renaissance art to Egyptian artifacts) and a colony of cats in the moat.  Backtracking towards the Duomo, our last stop was the Teatro alla Scala, unassuming on the outside but ornate in the interior as befitting Milan's opera house.  It has a small museum inside, and normally you can tour the theatre.  On this day tours were not allowed but we got to see something better: rehearsals for the upcoming Cello Suites (In den Winden im Nichts), featuring Bach's music with interpretive dance.

Dolphin rugby!

Genoa (week 34)

It is perhaps fitting that, having most recently visited the former Genoese colony of Corsica, we'd start our exit tour in the city of Genoa.  Formerly the centre of a vast commercial empire, we obviously could not even scratch the surface of the historical sites in a 1-day stop.  So we decided to go to the aquarium instead, since we are becoming aquarium connoisseurs.  This is the 8th aquarium in 6 countries that the boys have visited.  Genoa's is the largest in Italy, and also one of the newest in Europe.  It is very nice, and has dolphins, penguins, and manatees, among the usual coral reef denizens (but not including reef sharks).  One dolphin, in particular, put on an unscripted show (without any trainers present) playing with a rugby ball.

Piazza de Ferrari

Almost everything in Genoa, including the aquarium, is bilingual.  English is widely spoken and printed on tourist material, and whenever we've offered the option to speak in English or French, the natives prefer to speak English.  We consider it a minor victory that the Italians, at least, aren't sure if we look (North) American or French, perhaps because they are the two types of people who cover their clothes with English slogans (if we've learned nothing else about France, we've learned that the most French of T-shirts has a picture of the Empire State Building and the words "I Love New York" on it).

Chiesa del Gesu

After the aquarium we took a walk up to the Piazza de Ferrari and took in the large fountain, the Palazzo Ducale (former home of the dukes of Genoa, now home of offices and an art gallery; you can freely walk through the pillared open-air atrium), and the Chiesa del Gesu.  The Church of Jesus can only be described as "ornate" with (I assume real) gilded gold trim and paintings covering every available space.  Oddly the cathedral was closed.