Listening to Perry Como

Saturday July 23 

Our hotel manager assured us that the overnight rain was finished, both in Milano and an hour north at Lake Como, so we set off for the tour bus in good spirits, skipping around the puddles.  The day was sunny and the company on the English language tour was truely international.  Fellow travelers were from Gibralter, Sweden, Dubai, Brazil, Japan... Only 6 from US, 2 Canada and 4 Australia.

Volta is the dome.
The taller on the right is a monument to WWII soldiers

 We learned that Como was home to three famous men.  Allesandro Volta, who is the namesake of electrical volts, lived and worked here. (He invented batteries.)  Citizens built a tower on the heights above the city and a temple on the edge of the lake shore in his honor.  You will meet the Plineys by the church.

Como docks

At Como we got off the bus and boarded the lake 'express', the Concordia, a paddlewheel boat built in 1926.  We spent 2 hours traveling along the western leg of Lake Lauria also known as Lake Como. 

waiting for the boat

WWII memorial and Volta tribute

The alps come right down to the lake so we enjoyed the mountain scenery. 

 

Villa Carlotta is on Carlotta's home screen. Wow here it is!

Besides the villages along the way, we saw George Cloony's villa, the summer palace of the King of Saudi Arabia, and Villa Carlotta.  Carlotta, the daughter of a Dutch queen, was given the villa as a wedding gift when Carlotta was wed.

They pointed out homes of designers and others that were in films or turned to museums.

Saudi family villa on right with large picture windows.





George Cluney's is the white villa on the right.  Later on the buss ride back, we passed just behind it on the road.

Clooney-road side view in a downpour :)

Bellagio

I have a new best friend in Bellagio, the landing spot for the boat trip.  We had time for lunch and shopping.  After we picniced on some good ham and cheese sandwiches, we started window shopping.  At one of the stores, we were admiring wood carvings in the window when Carla, the woman who owns the shop dashed over and started explaining the merchandise.  It's a good thing I had pretty much decided I wanted to buy or I might have had a broken arm.  She introduce her sister Beatrice who she said was in charge of the accounts.  They were real characters.  Carla not only walked us out of the shop, but part way down the block talking all the way.  [We should have gone here first, I think they would have fed us lunch.  OK, so I also bought angels carved by the same local artist.]

The lake was beautiful even with the lowering storm

It rained a little but held off as we took the ferry across to Tremezzo where we met the bus.  The driver said he was sure George C was in residence as he passed.  No more than we got on the buss there was a cloudburst.  As we drove back alone the narrow winding road they pointed out the cursed island, Carlotta Palace, Gucci, villa used on Star Wars  movie and Geroge's place.

Como Duomo

Pliney elder



Pliney younger

Back in the village of Como we visited the cathederal.  It is one of the few Roman Catholic churches  with statues of two non-Christians on either side of the front door. Another two favorite sons, Pliny the elder and Pliny the younger. 




It is too bad the day was so dark, even so the colors of the ceiling were beautiful.  This is the first catheral in Italy that I felt was well used by the parishioners and not just admired by tourists.

DJA

Gelatto raiting was 5+.  However, we did NOT try the bright blue Smurf flavor.

Still smiling - planning the next trip

We took many photos this vacation including a lot of other people's photos.  After we took a photo for the girls from Dubai, one of them took our picture.

Everything went as planned, sort of...

Friday, July 22

Duomo, Milano

Today the public transportation workers called a strike between 9 and 3. It didn't directly affect our plans, but our HO, HO (Hop On, Hop Off) tour bus had to go out of the way to get around the crowd and street blockages.

God in a pepper tree er - burning bush

We revisited the Duomo, since A) it had been pouring rain when we were there on Tuesday so no outside pictures and B) it had been pouring rain on Tuesday so inside was dark and dreary. What a difference a day of sunshine makes. The outside looks like a wedding cake and the stained glass was brilliant today.

Milan's first skyscraper 1955 is the one wider on the top. 

No wonder it took more than 600 years to build

Then Mary took the elevator up to the roof to take closer pictures of the spires and of an overview of the city. I prudently stayed on the ground and ogled the guards.

Back on the HO,HO and on to the Pinecoteca di Brera, a great art museum that's pretty tucked away. Since Mary didn't get to sit next to any good looking guys on the Ho,Ho, she got to pose next to the Nude Napoleon.

Note to Special Audience of two: The orb the Napoleon has in his right hand has a pretty good copy of the Hantesa Fairy on it.

The museum was great--pictures well lighted, chairs in every room, plenty of restrooms scattered throughout. An interesting collection of pictures ranging from Jesus Showing Off His Harmonica at the Last Supper to endless pictures of San Nicolo with a machete in his head (or almost in his head, or just out of his head.) Oh, and not to forget all the San Sabastians with anywhere from three to twenty-three arrows stuck in various portions of the anatomy. Sorry, no pictures.

Another no picture event--we stopped at a sidewalk cafe to order something to drink. They brought out a menu and on the next to the last page it mentioned Small cakes or Shortbreads. So when the waiter came, I said we'd like the small cakes. It turns out we didn't want the small cakes because this was a restaurant for EATING! I thought I intended to eat the cakes, but they threw us out. Guess we needed to eat a whole meal there. I haven't mastered the rules of what and when and where you are allowed to eat here.

 

So we stopped at L'Oasi de Parco. While eating our pretzels and drinking our coke, watched a young woman bike up to the window, order a beer, snag the opened bottle off the counter and bike away. No little cakes for her, though.




Speaking of bikers, we watched a stunt biker perform for professional photographers.

He was on a column 5' high & bounced down

An added bonus(?) was listening to a Moby soundcheck. We could go back tonight and hear it without buying a ticket.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Museum



See the yellow ovals?  3 different streets

Thursday, July 21   
 
This morning we planned our remaining time in Milan--a visit to the Brera Museum today and a trip to the Monumental Cemetery on Friday, with a bus tour to Lake Como on Saturday. (See what you have to look forward to?)

on a map, Giovanni may be there...

I told Mary that today we needed to walk around the arena and shoot off down the street. She liked that idea so we walked along the outside edge of the park toward the arena (because of the shade), and at the curve of the arena we did indeed shoot off down the street. But the name of the street on the map didn't match the actual street name. No worry, street names change each block and we knew we had to bear right. However, the further right we bore, the less any street names matched. And then the street names started appearing in Italian AND Chinese. Mary thought I led her to Shanghi downtown.

We finally found a street name that matched the map--and it was nowhere near the museum, but luckily only about four blocks from the cemetery, which rates rave reviews from the guide book, so we went along and gawked and took photos. All nationalities names are on the graves and niches where ashes are placed.

(According the the guides, you know you've arrived in Milan when you are famous enough and rich enough to buy a plot (at roughly $200,000). )




We sat and talked about all of the people who ruled Milan over the years making it a metropolitan city - until the caretaker indicated that he had to lock up for lunch/siesta.

matching graves from same family

note a ladder,water can & fountain so flowers can be maintained.
 like the US most flowers are artificial,
but there is a flower shop just outside the gate

WWII era next to Jewish graves 

Family vaults

His date was WWII, hers 20 years after

So then, what was Mary's problem?

We ate an excellent lunch at 聚賓餐廳 (Ristorante Jubin) in Chinatown --chicken cashew and pork meatballs. They had an extensive menu of Chinese, Thai, and Japanese dishes. In fact, the menu looked the size and shape of my high school annual--complete with pictures.

Lack of peas.

And on our otherwise uneventful walk back to the hotel we stopped for gelato--a real find at 5++ for the mixed berry, the double chocolate, the peach, and the regular chocolate. The berry and the peach were especially fresh-fruit tasting. Sorry, no gelato picture; it was so hot, we had to eat it quickly so it didn't melt.

In fact, it was so good we waited until 6 and walked the seven blocks back to Freddogelato for more before supper. Besides we needed to take a photo for you. Passed a grocer with such a tempting display of fresh fruit that we bought a few blackberries to eat in the room. Then walked past the ultimate breadbasket.

I don't think we will get so creative.

Segue:  Tommy they did not let us get on the Segway tour.

Castle Museums



Parco Sempione

July 20

Off to Castello Sforzesco accompanied by a couple mounted policemen--well, they were headed in our direction, anyway, and we ended up in the same spot at the same time.

Castello sforzesco

A lot of the Castello is covered by scaffolding as they are attempting to spruce it all up before the next World's Fair to be held here. In a way the castle is already a fake, since it was mostly destroyed by bombs during WWII, but the Milanese rebuilt it and are now restoring the rebuilding from early plans.

Duchal Chapel

Chapel angels

Anyway, they have tons of art work here in the first museum, mostly from the 13th to 16th century.

Ducal Chapel with Madona

Wedding at Cana picture by Marco d'Oggiono

Donna Jo's favorite helmet.  I had to remind her to read the signs in the museum store.

Armor and weapons gallery

From the tomb of Bernabo Visconti                    by Bonino      1363   

Three angels

Then for the second museum you climb 72 stairs and start in the design museum--mostly items that IKEA doesn't carry. Inlay of precious gems,

Then up about 6 more steps we toured more pictures.

Mary, Jesus, John, and angel by Marco d'Oggiono

George and Margaret (who killed her own dragon) by Pellegrino Pellegrini

The inside moat has a population of 80 cats that is taken care of by the city. They've been checked and certified by a vet and now if you attempt to dump your cat here it's a 300 Euro fine. We only managed to see about 4 and had trouble snapping photos.