Milan

Reed and I prepared to go our separate ways for a while as we left Cinque Terre. I still had a little bit of time to kill before my parents arrived, however, so I headed toward Milan to spend about three quarters of a day. It’s almost unanimously agreed that Milan does not crack the top five or so as far as tourist cities in Italy go. But I was in the area, and I had only a short amount of time to spend, so it seemed perfect for me.

Milan is quite a large city, and it’s not very touristy, but thankfully, you can find its best tourist attractions all in the same part of town. So once I got over there, it was easy walking.

If you see one site in Milan, apparently, it should be the duomo. So to the duomo I went. I tried to look up the difference between a duomo and a cathedral, but it is all convoluted with whether or not it is an active church and whether there is a local bishop, and it didn’t even seem like there were bright-line rules. I’m going to say that duomo is basically an Italian synonym for “cathedral.” (In any event, it’s church #11.) I think you’ll agree that it looks pretty cool from the outside. And they allow you to walk around on the roof – which was cool – especially because it doesn’t seem as though the roof was designed originally to be walked on. It actually feels like you’re just strolling around on top.

Now, I try to have pictures of myself in front of at least one site in every city. But tourists, myself included, are all paranoid that someone is going to steal their cameras. My personal strategy is to ask an older person. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, no one over 30 is going to outrun me with my camera. On the flip side, I find that the older the person, the worse the picture. The person usually will hold the camera up to his or her face despite the viewing screen and take a picture that either doesn’t include much of me or doesn’t include much of the site. The overly paranoid cannot be choosers, though, I suppose. So here is one of my Milan pictures.

Shady.

The inside of the duomo looked like the inside of a duomo. To set it apart, it had massive pieces of art suspended along the sides of the transept. It was an interesting touch, and of course the church was beautiful, but it was still my 11th church.

Across from the duomo is Milan’s Victor Emmanuel Galley - which is basically a nice-looking, covered outdoor shopping mall. It was neat but not really notable as far as stores in Milan go – as I will explain later. In the middle of the gallery, however, is something a little more unusual.

There are four or five coats of arms on the tile mosaic floor, and one of them simply has a bull on it. You will notice that this bull has been… well, emasculated. For some reason about which I am still not clear, it is supposed to be good luck to plant your foot in the bull’s nether regions and spin around a few times. I suppose everyone could use some good luck – which explains why there was a line to do this, so I spun on the bull’s balls on my way through the gallery.

Luckier and dizzier, I moved on to Milan’s La Scala Opera House. While Milan is not a big tourist city, it is the center or culture in Italy in a hundred different ways – industry, fashion, the arts, etc. Apparently, it is not only incredibly expensive to get opera tickets at this opera house but also incredibly difficult even to get the opportunity to buy the costly things. So while I normally would have very little interest in seeing an opera house, I decided to check it out.

It was definitely overpriced, but it was interesting to see – very fancy. You’re not allowed to take pictures inside… at least in view of security. Come on. I paid something like €10 to go in there. I'm taking pictures.

After the opera house, I stopped at a gourmet sandwich place that came up after my patented day-before “Top Things to Do in _______” Google search. It was at de Santis Panini that I had the best grilled cheese sandwich that I have ever had in my life. I had counted on looking up the ingredients later online, but they don’t post their menu which is incredibly disappointing. It had four cheeses – two of which were fontina and goat cheese and two of which I cannot remember, and it was grilled in a panini press. And it was amazing. I want another one.

As I walked across Milan eating my amazing sandwich, I steered toward the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. I had just realized the day before that the building houses Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper. I also had heard that you absolutely have to book it days in advance. Dropped the ball on that one. I went by anyway to see, and sure enough, they were booked solid. I tried to associate myself with a few tour groups to weasel my way in, but I was turned away. I did take pictures of the building, though.

They didn’t even seem that busy. Oh well. They probably wouldn’t let me take a picture of it once I was in there, and we all know what it looks like anyway. I googled it and saved some euro.

On my way from the convent, I strolled past Castello Sforzesco – which used to be the castle of dukes and duchesses and now houses museums – and a nice adjoining park. Then, it was on to the Quadrangle of Gold.

The Quadrangle of Gold – or the Quadrangle of Fashion –is where Milan’s character really comes out. If you walk down any street in Milan, you’ll see designer names left and right. Most of the people are young and very well dressed. The city takes appearance very seriously. But the Quadrangle of Gold is the epicenter of expensive Milanese shopping. These four long streets make the expensive stores in Monte Carlo look like a strip mall. Most of it was lost on me (not even really worth taking pictures), but they say you really don’t get a feel for Milan unless you walk down that street. So I did.

And that was Milan. Three quarters of a day was just about right. And so were the travel guides: it wasn’t that awesome. It’s a modern city and a young city, though - Italy’s scaled down, cleaner version of New York City in a few ways - or maybe San Francisco in the area around Union Square. It definitely showed me a different side of Italy.

And then I was off on a train to Florence, where I would eventually meet up with my folks. More to come.

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More pictures of Milan: