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Other entries in Milano

A little sightseeing in Milano

Today, Daniela and the baby took off in the car for the long trip to Germany.  They were going to visit her family near Frankfurt and later in the week, Tatsuo, will fly up to meet them.  After breakfast and goodbyes, Tatsuo and I headed into Milan for a few hours.  Our goal was to a) get the route and correct trains down for tomorrow and my first day of language school, so I'd be okay going alone, b) visit the Duomo (Cathedral) and get some pictures and c) locate a couple of English bookstores - or one that carried English books, at least.  I needed to get an Italian - English, English - Italian dictionary to use for class.

It turned out to be a warm, sunny October day.  I rode my bike (or the one they had lent me) to Arcore station and Tatsuo half walked, half jogged (he has several bikes, but non of them he would leave at the station for fear of them getting stolen...)  We caught a late morning train into the city, switched to the Metro for three stops and found the school without problems (since I had been there once before with Daniela).  It took over an hour door-to-door.  Actually the dictionary was quite easy to find, as well.  There was a tent selling books right outside Cadorna station, where my school is located. After lunching at a popular panini cafe, we wandered through the posh Galleria shopping mall next to the Duomo, then headed back to Arcore.  It was a fun, little sightseeing tour before the real work of studying started.

Here's more info on the Duomo:

Commissioned by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, construction on the Cathedral began in 1386. It is the third largest church in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome and the Cathedral of Seville. It is made of marble, with immense statues, arches, pillars, pinnacles. There are about 3500 statues and 96 gargoyles. The highest pinnacle is 108.5 metres, and it has on its top a statue of the Virgin Mary, best known as the “Madonnina”, covered in gold. Inside the church there are many interesting works of art: the tomb of Gian Giacomo Medici di Marignano, known as “Il Medeghino”; the crypt and St. Carlo Borromeo’s statue; the wooden choir-stails; the Tivulziano candelabrum; the Egyptian porphyry basin. There also old stained-glass windows of the XV century. Visiting the Cathedral, it is possible to go on the roof where you have an overview of the city. It is also possible to visit the ruins of the Baptistery of San Giovanni alle Fonti (Baptistery of Sant’Ambrogio).

And the Galleria:

The magnificent Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II isn't known as il salotto di Milano (Milan's living room) for nothing. It connects piazza del Duomo with piazza della Scala in grand style, and the upper echelons of Milan society all pass through at some point. Suited businessmen will happily pay €10 for a cappuccino on the terrace at Zucca, and elegant grandmothers carry their chihuahuas in Fendi bags. Shopping is, and always has been, the Galleria's main activity, and fashion flagships radiate out from the twin powerhouses of Prada and Louis Vuitton in the centre.

The Galleria's designer, Giuseppe Mengoni, pioneered its complex marriage of iron and glass 20 years before the Eiffel Tower was built. The Galleria was officially opened in 1867 by Vittorio Emanuele II, king of a newly united Italy; but, in a sour twist of fate, Mengoni wasn't present, having fallen to his death from his own creation a few days earlier.

The ceiling vaults are decorated with mosaics representing Asia, Africa, Europe and America. At ground level are mosaics of more local concerns: the coats of arms of Vittorio Emanuele's Savoia family, and the symbols of Milan (a red cross on a white field), Rome (a she-wolf), Florence (an iris) and Turin (a bull). If you can't see Turin's symbol, look out for the tourists spinning on their heels on the bull's privates - it's said to guarantee good luck.

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