Milan, Day 1

Our room was ready just after breakfast, so they brought our bags up and we were able to compare the room here to Venice.  You will not be surprised to hear it fails in comparison, though it's a perfectly nice, clean room and spacious by European standards.

Then we decided to walk to 3k to our tour meeting point, and got all turned around, but made it.  The tour started with The Last Supper.  Nothing I can say can possibly do it justice, and I am so glad we made the side trip to Milan to see it.  Our guide, Valeria was AWESOME and an absolute wealth of information.  I learned so much from her today.  In my copious free time when we're home, I have to read more about Leonardo and the Last Supper and its transformative effect on subsequent interpretations.  Here you can see our guide getting up close to give us some insight into what's going on.  Did you know the superstition about spilling salt is because when Jesus told the disciples that one of them would betray him, Judas jumped in surprise and guilt and knocked over the salt?  You can see this in the original, but it's deteriorated now to where it's not recognizable.

The Last Supper requires tickets, they only let 30 people in at a time, you can't take photos, and you have to go through airlocks to get in and out (I am not kidding).  It was so worth it.

After that, we went to the San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore which has frescoes that are in good shape, unlike Leonardo's "experimental" Last Supper.  There were two separate churches here, one for the public and one behind it for the cloistered nuns.  There were just two small windows where the priest celebrating Eucharist showed the Host and then dispensed Communion.  The one where he dispensed Communion, being at eye-level to the seated congregation, was deliberately created very small so to minimize possible temptation by seeing the nuns.

We walked through the Sforza castle and then stopped for gelato.    Two scoops!

On the way to the Duomo, we passed the La Scala theater, where we'll have a tour tomorrow, and checked out the statue of Leonardo in the square out front.  Valeria complained that this depiction of him makes him look studious and aloof when contemporary accounts describe him as active and extroverted.  His statue also depicts four of his apprentices (and lovers).

Our tour continued through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele where tradition is that Milanese needing good luck put their heel on the balls of the bull and spin three times.  The balls are now gone and there's just a hole in the mosaic, but I still did it.

From there it was onto the Doumo.  Simply amazing facade, and the view from the top was everything we'd been promised.  The marble used to build it is lower quality than what's used in Rome or Florence, and thus very prone to erosion.  As a result, it's constantly being replaced with new marble.  We were supposed to take the lift back down, but somehow we missed that line, so took the steps and wound up inside the duomo very briefly.  We'll see more of that tomorrow, I hope.

When the tour was done, we headed over to Luini, which is Milanese fast food.  It's basically pizza sauce and cheese fried in a doughnut.  Yummy.  Perhaps not something I could eat all the time.

We found our way back to the hotel with less drama, though we're going to try to get a map for tomorrow, and are enjoying drinks and snacks in the executive lounge, though Lyle has already said we're getting a pizza later.

We still have two whole weeks in Italy!!

Marty and Lyle