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OK, so I'm an addict. The manager of the internet cafe I'm in just
laughed when I walked in the door...if only he knew that sometimes I
frequent another one as well...
Today I paid a visit to Milano! I had a batch of CDs waiting for me, and
since I'm staying in Genova another week I was able to take a tourist day
rather than a travel day. There's really not much to see in Milano,
surprising for a city of about 2.5 million people, but it was really
amazing to check out Italy's only Gothic cathedral. Absolutely stunning,
and climbing to the roof was way easier than it is in the domed
Renaissance ones! With the domes, it takes you 150 or so stairs to get to
the dome, then another 200 or so to the top of that. With Milano's
cathedral, 165 steps was it - I got to the roof and said "is that all?"
The best way to describe Milano's cathedral is that it's a union job gone
horribly awry - the church hired the guild to decorate the church until it
was finished and they spent 500 years carving every single surface they
could find. It's stunning. Things that no one could reasonably expect to
see are carved within an inch of their lives.
I also shelled out a bit extra to see the underground foundations of the
cathedral's 4th century baptistry, which was where St Ambrose baptised St
Augustine (for those of you not up on your Church history, that was a Big
Deal). Italian baptistries are fascinating to me - essentially they are
an extra church next to a cathedral, usually octagonal in shape (modeled
after Constantine's 320's era one that is still connected to San Giovanni
in Laterno in Rome), that was used entirely for baptisms. Crazy stuff.
Other than that and a renaissance castle in the middle of town, though,
Milano doesn't have much to offer the tourist. What it has is big-city
atmosphere, and lots of it. Coming just after London, it was amazing how
similar the two cities felt. It's no wonder to me that when people speak
of urban Italy they always discuss Milano (and sometimes Torino) rather
than Rome.
It was an adventure getting my FedEx package of CDs (wandering through an
industrial park where they keep the holding facility where they were
holding hostage my package instead of forwarding it to the nicely central
location in Milano like I'd intended), but a successful one. I've made it
back to Genova and I'm looking forward to the upcoming week!
laughed when I walked in the door...if only he knew that sometimes I
frequent another one as well...
Today I paid a visit to Milano! I had a batch of CDs waiting for me, and
since I'm staying in Genova another week I was able to take a tourist day
rather than a travel day. There's really not much to see in Milano,
surprising for a city of about 2.5 million people, but it was really
amazing to check out Italy's only Gothic cathedral. Absolutely stunning,
and climbing to the roof was way easier than it is in the domed
Renaissance ones! With the domes, it takes you 150 or so stairs to get to
the dome, then another 200 or so to the top of that. With Milano's
cathedral, 165 steps was it - I got to the roof and said "is that all?"
The best way to describe Milano's cathedral is that it's a union job gone
horribly awry - the church hired the guild to decorate the church until it
was finished and they spent 500 years carving every single surface they
could find. It's stunning. Things that no one could reasonably expect to
see are carved within an inch of their lives.
I also shelled out a bit extra to see the underground foundations of the
cathedral's 4th century baptistry, which was where St Ambrose baptised St
Augustine (for those of you not up on your Church history, that was a Big
Deal). Italian baptistries are fascinating to me - essentially they are
an extra church next to a cathedral, usually octagonal in shape (modeled
after Constantine's 320's era one that is still connected to San Giovanni
in Laterno in Rome), that was used entirely for baptisms. Crazy stuff.
Other than that and a renaissance castle in the middle of town, though,
Milano doesn't have much to offer the tourist. What it has is big-city
atmosphere, and lots of it. Coming just after London, it was amazing how
similar the two cities felt. It's no wonder to me that when people speak
of urban Italy they always discuss Milano (and sometimes Torino) rather
than Rome.
It was an adventure getting my FedEx package of CDs (wandering through an
industrial park where they keep the holding facility where they were
holding hostage my package instead of forwarding it to the nicely central
location in Milano like I'd intended), but a successful one. I've made it
back to Genova and I'm looking forward to the upcoming week!
