OFF AGAIN! ITALY AND FRANCE!

TRIP OVER AND FIRST DAY IN ITALY

I''m at Angie's in Southbury, CT, and Cathy just arrived. Angie's husband Barry is driving us to JFK. We're starting to get in a tizzy and will calm down once we are sitting waiting at the gate!! I'd much rather be early. 

So it's 6:30 a.m. and we are waiting in Dublin to load on our Aer Linghus flight to Milan! So far all is well. Not sure if I slept any but I tried! Hopefully, we'll have energy to store our luggage and sight-see a bit in Milan before training to Bologna and meeting up with David, Angie's son who is working on his masters there. He speaks fluent Italian so that will be helpful. On my list for Milan are the Duomo (I didn't go inside when I was there 3 years ago traveling with the monks), the Galleria, a wonderful covered shopping arcade, through to La Scala - I'm hoping to get in the museum so I can just see the stage/theatre. Don't think there is a hope of seeing the Last Supper. On line, all tours and tickets were sold out. But they told me that when I was there before; I went to the gate and they gave me a ticket for noon. So I did the Hop on/Hop off bus and came back later. And got my 15 minutes in with DaVinci's beautiful mural. 

Cathy and Angie collected our luggage while I went out to check out how we get downtown. I found the place to get the bus tickets and did that - the bus would take us to Milan Centrale station where we left our luggage and went off with light backpacks. They decided they didn't want to bother with a taxi to try and get tickets for the Last Supper. So we headed on the metro to Il Duomo. A lovely TALL Italian gendarme (I forget the Italian word!) told us not to wait in this long line but pointed to another office by the Duomo Museum where we could buy tickets to get inside AND to ride the elevator to the top of the spires. 

The Duomo was constructed between 1386 and 1810!! It was built to hold 40,000 worshippers, the population of Milan at the time construction began. It's the 4th largest church, after the Vatican, London and Sevilla. 2000 statues decorate the inside, along with 52 100 ft. pillars representing the weeks of the year and the liturgical calendar. Another 1000 statues are on the outside. The dukes of Milan thought the Gothic style, with so many pointed arches and spires, would be more impressive to outsiders and make a name for Milan! Pink marbles was rafted in from about 60 miles away on Lake Maggiore and down a canal to the cathedral. 

The brilliant and expensive stained glass is from the 15th century. Some more modern painted glass replaces windows damaged during WWII. 

The grotesque statue of St. Bartholomeo, a 1st century martyr who was flayed alive, wrapped in his skin like a mantle, was carved by a Da Vinci student who had studied human anatomy by dissection, forbidden by the Church at that time.

The floor was an amazing pattern of inlaid marble: black and very hard from Lake Como - you could tell is was less worn; white from Lake Maggiore, and pink from Verona. 

Down a few steps was the crypt of St. Charles Borromeo 1538-1584, bishop of Milan and the economic power behind the church.

The rooftop is the most memorable part of a Duomo visit. I hadn't gone up there before, probably  because of the long lines. But it didn't take us long to get into the elevator. There were still many steps to climb after that, wending our way around between the spires. 

By this time we were starving! I hadn't eaten the dinner on the plane as was trying to sleep! We found a Food Court and we all were sated for a while. I had a refreshing beer and flatbread sandwich with proscuitto and cheese! Before we left, we had a bit of a comedy finding a restroom (which was beautiful!! and very modern!) and discovering we had to pay E.50 to use it!! One of us tried to climb under the turnstile entrance and got caught by the attendant!! Very funny!! No names mentioned!! :)

Now we strolled through the Galleria, a 4 story high covered shopping mall with really high end shops with amazing window displays. This iron and glass structure, built during the age of Eiffel and the heady days of Italian unification in mid-19th century, was the first building in town to have electric lighting. 

At the Piazza della Scala in front of the opera house there is a huge statue of Leonardo who spent his best 20 years here where he was the brainy darling of the Sforza family (who dominated Milan as the Medicis did in Florence). Leonardo reengineered the canals of Milan so it became one of Italy's major ports, until the 1920s,  with connections to the Po River and Lake Maggiore, through a system of locks. 

La Scala is not too impressive from the outside, but Angie and I went into the Museum, and were lucky enough to get a peek at the huge, magnificent theater where they were rehearsing a scene from the current opera!! Full orchestra and all! The rooms surrounding the theater contained paintings of previous conductors, composers and performers, including Maria Callas. Also many antique musical instruments and memorablie from the likes of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Toscannini, as well as magnificent costumes on display. Well worth the E5 senior admission!!

By this time we were all fading! So we headed to the Metro station and back to Centrale to pick up our luggage and get tickets for the 4:30 train to Bologna. We are having lots of difficulty with wifi and were unable to connect with WhatsApp with David to tell him we were coming a bit early. He was going to get the keys to our apartment and meet us at the train station around 6:30. But we arrived at 5:30! We did a lot of wandering and walking, trying to find a wifi place. We stopped at this little bar/cafe and tried to get the guy working there to call David. Finally, Francesca, a lovely Italian young woman walking by took over and called a taxi for us and waited to help give him directions. Angie finally heard from David who was in a class and had our keys. Francesca got hugs from us when the cab arrived and off we went. We had a little drama when one of us lost an essential cell phone (she was sitting on it!!) and there was emotions all around, as we tried calling the number to locate the phone!! The taxi driver was incredibly patient with 3 tired, emotionally wrought American retired teachers!!! He took us to David's class building and Angie ran into get the keys. He then took us to our lovely airbnb Loft on a very tiny street in a great neighborhood! Three floors, some kind of renovated building like the lofts in SoHo in NY city! 

Angie stayed put and waited for David to come around 8. Cathy and I decided to explore the neighborhood and found a cute little wine shop with quite a few locals inside. We went in to have our first glass of Italian wine!! Georgia the delightful waitress, recommended a local Merlot and prepared a delicious plate of mortadella (for which Bologna is famous!), a kind of pepperoni, proscuitto, and several cheeses, with some bread. This became my dinner (Cathy doesn't eat much meat so just had a little cheese, which was delicious!! After two glasses of wine, and a promise to come back on our 3 day visit here, we headed back, with me asking directions and scarfing down my second gelato of the day!! 

David arrived shortly thereafter and went off with Angie to a market and I think some dinner. Cathy and I headed to bed, after a great shower, for me, in this deep tub like open shower!! It's now 5:45 a.m. and I've been awake since 3 and couldn't sleep any more. So I'm upstairs doing my blog. I think we're going to take a "lazy day" and wander the city, meeting up with David in the afternoon. He is 23, in his first year of a Masters program in International Studies from Johns Hopkins, and speaks fluent Italian. This is his 3rd stint of studying in Italy, one in Parma, one in Florence when he was an undergrad at Boston College. Angie did great with her Italian with the taxi driver! We definitely got his number to call him, probably when we leave here to get us back to Bologna Centrale!

Ciao!! from Bologna!