daVinci

Duoma  hundreds of years in the making.

Tuesday, July 19

This is the first day we've had rain most of the day.  I ended up buying an umbrella just so we didn't drown on the walking tour.  Luckily, it is not cold. [During the rush to get in the church, several umbrellas conspired to poor water down my back.]

Milan reminds me a lot of downtown Chicago--lots of suits mixed with shoppers, and the tourists are just an added annoyance.  This  morning we walked from our hotel to where our walking tour was to start, only to discover that the company had had computer problems and had overbooked.  They asked if we would mind rescheduling in the afternoon and as an incentive they gave us a free morning on the "hop on, hop off" bus which covered a different part of the city.  And I ended up delighted that we took them up on it.  ( We have no pictures, as the batteries died in both our cameras, but...)

glass behind the main alter

We were sitting on opposite sides of the bus as the English translation didn't work for Mary.  The bus started getting very full [not true there were lots of seets including the one by me] about the fourth bus stop when this absolutely adorable-looking young man (25-30ish) asked if he could sit beside me.  He smelled very faintly of sandalwood; it was all I could do to keep my hands off him.  He spoke English very well, but listened to the commentary in Polish.  I truly tried to take his picture when he hopped off the bus five stops later, but the camera refused.  (Mary agreed that he truly looked like a hero in a Nora Roberts novel--dark and delicious.) [ I have never been so envious of Donna Jo, nor so sorry not to have slipped the extra battery in my bag.  It was especially true when he leaned accross her to get a better photo of the Duomo. sigh]

Galleria Victor Emmanuel II (first shopping mall)

Walking tour took us to La Scala, the Duomo, the Galleria Victor Emmanuel II (first shopping mall), and the church of Santa Maria della Grazie (daVinci's Last Supper, which is well worth seeing.  They severely limit the number of people who can see it each day and have double airlock entry and exit to control the humidity).  We didn't have enough time most of those places to do much, and we couldn't take pictures in a lot of them.  Fortunately, we have time to return at our leasure.

DJA

Duoma painted windows
allied bombs shattered originals

Our tour guide was from the same little town as daVinci and was a real fan.  Did you know Leonardo also composed music?