Day 16 - Milan

            It was an overcast, drizzly day in Milan today, but that was OK.  The weather we have had throughout our trip has been amazing and better than we expected.  We figured we would have had several rainy days, and really we had just a few drizzles that were no big deal

            We had early reservations at the Last Super and like many days were up at the crack of dawn.  The experience at the Last Super was a lot like seeing the David in Florence, Wow!  Only small groups are allowed inside at a time.  There were probably 15 people in our group.  After passing through a set of double doors that controls the humidity, we started our 30 minutes audio guide.  We were only given 30 minutes to enjoy the painting and we needed every second.  Lucky for us the painting had just been renovated so the colors were really nice.  It was amazing that at some point, someone had built a door right through the middle of the room and so the bottom portion of Savior is missing from where this door stood.  It was moving to stare at the art and ponder the subject of his work.  These Renaissance Artists were truly inspired.

            After making a quick trip inside the adjacent church we went to the Leonardo Da Vinci’s National Science Museum.  It was fun. We arrived early along with a couple dads and their children.  It was huge.  We mainly concentrated on the sketches of Leonardo (copies) that had been turned into machines by modern man.  We wandered through a few other exhibits and could have spent more time there, but are museum energy was waning.   After the science museum we headed to the Pinacoteca Art Museum.  The highlight of this museum was the sketches (cartoons) of Raphael’s School of Athens, which was especially meaningful after having seen the original in the Vatican Museum.  The other highlight was the original drawings and sketches from Leonard Da Vinci’s journals.  His mind must have never turned off.  He must have asked himself the most amazing questions and then never dismissed them as stupid or impossible.  We lost a few during the final museum visit.  It has been a long two weeks of art and culture.

            For lunch we enjoyed getting another prosciutto sandwich at a fancy grocery store where each food product had it’s own server. The food was then put on an in-store card, which then we paid for, and then had to walk back to all the independent areas and pick up our food.  Leave it to the Italians to add 3 extra steps to what could be a very simple process.

The spires of the Duomo

            After lunch we took a quick walk through the Duomo, but the highlight was climbing to the roof.  Unlike other roof walks we’ve done, once we reached the top of the church we were free to wander around and explore.  People were on the top of the church relaxing and enjoy the sun that had peaked out, chatting, eating, and looking over the city.  Although a nice city, not nearly as interesting to look out upon when compared to Florence.

            After the Duomo we split up and did some exploring on our own.  A few went shopping, some went back to the hotel to rest, and we went to the edge of the city wall to look at the fort.  We had a nice time wandering around, but didn’t know too much of what we were seeing.  After the Fort and a gelato we took a stroll down a really couple high end fashion streets and looked at the fancy shops, before ending up back at the Galleria and an adjacent 10 story department store.  We road up all 10 levels just to count how many levels there were.  What was amazing is that we saw people shopping in this nice department store with their dogs on a leash.  Nordstrom would never put up with such a thing.  We ended our day before meeting our group for dinner, just sitting in the piazza outside the Duomo watching and talking.  Milan is a melting pot and there with people from every corner of the world.

            Our “last supper” was fantastic.  John had secured a reservation at a quiet, family run hotel not far from the Duomo.  It was good, calm, relaxing and so good to be with good friends.  Despite all the beautiful scenery, architecture and art we saw, our 2 hours dinners every evening will be a highlight and a treasured memory.