Monday - August 1 – We’re heading out to Bergamo, a city about 30 km east of Milan to check out an art gallery which is supposed to be one of the best in Northern Italy due to the Napoleonic era when he had his troops pillage palaces to collect all the art. We thought it’d been neat to see some renaissance pieces as well as other masterpieces. The city also has an upper and lower part – upper is old and wall enclosed, lower much newer. The traffic on the Austrada is very heavy this morning, so it takes us much longer to travel the short distance. We park and go off in search of the museum. We find the museum and find that it is closed for extensive renovations but we can see a portion of the collection in the old part of the city.
We manage to find our way up to the old part “Citta Alta” only to find that it is limited to permit traffic only. It is getting late and we decide to find a restaurant known for its polenta. However, we have difficulty finding it, so opt to just find another place. We have difficulty finding one that is open and it takes us a 30 min to find anything open or where we can park. It is disappointing to not be able to do what we had planned, but we must return to Milan as our friends from Calgary, the MacSween family are passing through Milan for 2 days and are staying at the same hotel as us. We are to pick them up at Milan Centrale train station at 15:35. Jeffrey has no idea they are coming, so it will be a great treat for him to see Mike, Annette, Andrew, Matthew, Marcie and Aidan. It’s another town that would be neat to explore more at another time.
We find our way back to the hotel easier than this morning, figuring out a route to the train station, which surprising to us is only about 15 minutes from the hotel. J is very pleased that we are going to have friends to visit with for a couple of days. We arrive at the station with time to spare and take the time to look around and admire the beautiful architecture of the building that we had been in twice to change trains en-route to somewhere, but only had enough time to go in search of the next train.
The train is on time and we are very happy to see our friends who have just come in from Venice. After quick hugs and hellos, we leave the station and load up the 9 passenger van we have rented for the month. Bags loaded and seats filled, we drive off to the hotel. After checking in, we begin our visit out on the pool deck while the kids check out the amenities for themselves: foosball table, ping pong table, Xbox, and swimming pool. Everyone has a great time visiting and catching up on their/ours Italian adventures.
We decide to take them back over to the Taormina restaurant for dinner. We actually arrive close to Italian dining time (about 8 pm). Again the atmosphere is noisy with conversation from the full tables. Everyone enjoys what they had chosen to eat and no one goes away hungry. Once back at the hotel, the kids watch a movie while the adults enjoy some wine and chat time. Midnight arrives and we decide it’s time for bed and agree to meet in the lobby for 9:30 so we can go tour around Milan centro.
August, 2 – Tuesday - We are up by 8:30 and ready to meet the MacSweens in the lobby at 9:30. We are off to the tram stop but first – we must get out tickets and of course, at the same place, cappuccinos and brioches for the kids as they have not had breakfast. They are still trying to get on the Europe time zone, so they hadn’t been up for very long. Annette and Mike enjoyed theirs as much as us, and once all finished, we were on our way. The tram is the easy way to get down to the centre without having the hassle of parking and traffic, considering we are currently driving a 9 passenger van! We arrive 20 minutes later right out in front of the Castello Sforzesco, a fortress-like castle now housing a number of museums.
The fortress, built in the 14th century, had been partially destroyed in the 2nd world war and was rebuilt using the materials salvaged. We walked over the drawbridge into the yard and marveled at the height of the walls, which have holes in the walls which M listened to a tour and heard it was for scaffolding when the castle was built. Again the tops of the walls of the castle had the V for the Visconti family. We decided to check out the availability of an audioguide for the facility. We found out that for a small fee we could enter the museum to check out artwork from Leonardo da Vinci – a wonderful painted room full of trees. The last sculpture done by Michaelangelo called Rondanini Pietà started when he was over 80.
This was a good example of the value of the audioguide, as we learned much about the significance of various parts of the sculpture while looking at the object and listening the audioguide.
Several hours later, we all had enough museum and
decided we needed to get some lunch for the kids (and ourselves too) and then head over to our next stop, the Duomo. On the way we enjoy some of the scenery of central Milano.
The Milan Duomo is the 4th largest church in the world. It took 5 centuries to build this Gothic cathedral. It has over 300 sculptures on the outside of this intricately detailed cathedral. It was a true feast for the eyes.
Even though this is an incredible landmark, to get into the Duomo, it is a breeze since the crowd is vitually non-existent. It is very hot today, so the lack of crowd is a welcome all around. There is no entrance fee to view this wonderful church. We paid to have audioguides taking us through the history and detail of the incredible altars, statues, paintings, stained glass, and the structure itself. It’s interesting to hear how the cathedral was somewhat reconfigured to deal with the tourist traffic who enter the cathedral during mass times. There are 52 columns within the church representing the weeks of the year.
There is even a cathedral sundial near the entrance of the church complete with it’s small hole high up on the wall. The stain glass windows within this cathedral are utterly amazing – they each tell as story or represent a scene within the bible.
At the rear of the church there are three massive windows of stained glass, the stories of the old testament, the new testament and the story of Christ providing light into this massive church.
We spend a great deal of time wandering through the cathedral, enjoying all the wonders within.
Once we are finished within the Cathedral, the kids have had enough touring and are ready to head back to the hotel for a swim and downtime. Annette and T stayed behind to wander through the streets to find the high-end shops such as Dolce Gabana, Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Valentino, to name a few. We tried on some shoes, unfortunately, they didn’t fit (or fortunately for the guys credit cards). We had a few chuckles at some of the materials used to make shoes, and coats. The prices were very high but it was fun to check them out just the same – not too sure I’d want to pay $2000 Can for a pair of pants. We enjoyed the visit time and checking out the upcoming fashions. Hot and tired, we make our way back catch the tram back to the hotel.
Once we are finished within the Cathedral, the kids have had enough touring and are ready to head back to the hotel for a swim and downtime. Annette and T stayed behind to wander through the streets to find the high-end shops such as Dolce Gabana, Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Valentino, to name a few. We tried on some shoes, unfortunately, they didn’t fit (or fortunately for the guys credit cards). We had a few chuckles at some of the materials used to make shoes, and coats. The prices were very high but it was fun to check them out just the same – not too sure I’d want to pay $2000 Can for a pair of pants. We enjoyed the visit time and checking out the upcoming fashions. Hot and tired, we make our way back catch the tram back to the hotel.
Tonight we decide to go to a different restaurant quite close to the hotel. Some of the MacSween boys are wearing their new AC Milan soccer jerseys which has them getting ribbed by the host of the restaurant for wearing the “enemy” jersey – here they are die-hard Inter-Milan fans. He joked those without the jerseys can eat and those with aren’t welcome. We had a good laugh and were shown to our table. Yet again, we all enjoyed what we ordered and had a great evening. We enjoyed another late evening visiting and confirmed to meet in the morning.
August, 3 – Wednesday – We met Mike and Annette to go for a cappuccino and while there asked the owner, the secret to the great caps that he made. He gave us a lesson on foaming and hopefully when we get back we can replicate his instructions. The MacSweens were leaving us this morning to catch their train to Torino. We loaded everyone and bags into the van and headed for Milano Centrale. We arrived with plenty of time for them to catch the train. With hugs goodbye, they are off for their next stage of their Italian adventure and we are head back to our hotel. We update the blog and email and do a bit of laundry before we head off to centro Milano again to have a closer look at the exterior of the Duomo as yesterday we were more interested on the interior. We admire that vast number of statues and spiers each one of them unique.
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