Day 8 - A Rainy End

Day 8 brought the beauty of the Cinque Terre to an end, but took us to the beautiful city of Milan. I don't think that we would have made a stop in Milan if flying out of Milan hadn't been the cheapest way to travel for us. We flew into Rome and out of Milan, which ended up being PERFECT because there were some amazing things we were excited to see in Milan.

We caught the train leaving Manarola (it was sad to say goodbye...) really early, about 7:00 am. We had to take a train to Parma, and then from Parma to Milan. Luckily, there were no lovers on board our train this time. The seats on the train were in little compartments with 6 seats and doors that could close on the compartment. I'd never seen a train like that before, except for in Harry Potter, and I felt a little bit like I was part of the wizarding world that I love so much. I even told Dave that the only thing missing was a cute little old lady who walks around selling chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans yelling, "Anything from the trolley dears?" and pretty much as soon as I said it, there was man walking down the hall with a cart selling treats. It was the closest I've ever come to feeling part of the Harry Potter world, and boy was I excited. :)

We actually met some friends who were in our little Harry Potter compartments, and they spoke amazing English. We told them about all of the fun things we had seen so far, and talked with them about how exciting it had been for us to be in Italy. They talked to us about how they wish they could travel through the U.S. like we can travel through Italy. They'd both been to America before, but had only been to one or two cities. We could go almost across the entire country of Italy and see all of the sights we wanted to in just 7 days. They were frustrated that America was so big and that it didn't have a good train system to transport you to different cities. I'd never really thought about that too much before then. They both wanted to go to New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. We started talking about foods that we look forward to when we come to Italy (pizza, pesto, foccacia bread, etc.) and asked them if they had any food that they looked forward to eating when they came to the U.S. They both pretty much said no, and that we don't know how to make pasta and that our portion sizes are huge. The one thing the young man said that he did enjoy that he looks forward to eating again when he returns to America is a S'more. Mmmm. A man after my own heart.

When we finally reached Milan, it was SOO rainy. The rainiest it had been the entire trip. We were pretty fed up with the rain, but were still making the best of it. Our first stop was at the Victor Emmanuel gallery, which is kind of an indoor/outdoor shopping mall with restaurants. We found another self-serve place (since the Leonardo Express in Florence was such a positive experience for us) and this one was too - except for it was REALLY crowded. We came right at lunch hour, and we could tell that this was where the locals came to eat. We didn't see another tourist in sight. Busy and kind of hectic, but cool to feel like we were one of the locals again. In the middle atrium area of the mall, there is a little picture of a bull. Dave will tell you all about the bull in this little video.

You can see how popular the little bull was by the sheer amount of people that needed a turn here. We were waiting FOREVER. If you can catch it quickly at the end, you'll see how worn out the spot is on the floor where everyone spins their heel.

Inside the gallery, away from the little bull :)

Right outside the Victor Emmanuel gallery there is the HUGE Duomo. It is the 4th largest church in Europe. It is so massive because the dukes of Milan wanted to impress their other Christian friends in Germany and France, and wanted recognition and respect from the Vatican. If respect is earned due to an enormous building, then I'm sure they earned it. It is massive. It was built to hold 40,000 worshipers - the entire population of Milan when construction was first started. 

HUGE! And although it was built during the Renaissance when the gothic style of architecture was out and Renaissance style domes were in, they kept it gothic style thinking that the northerners (Germany and France, mostly) would better relate. 

After sufficiently looking at the outside of the building, we went in and explored the inside. Kind of like the dome in Florence, the inside wasn't as amazing as the outside. You'd think with a cathedral that looked like this, the inside would be stunning too - not quite. It was okay, but certainly not really beautiful.

This is hanging high on the ceiling above the altar piece. See where that red light is shining? That is supposedly illuminating the spot in that cross where a nail from the cross of Jesus hangs. The church takes it down once a year to put on display for a few days and then it goes safely back up in the cross again. Guess where the nail came from? Constantine's mom - it was another gift to her son when he converted to Christianity. Dave and I were wondering how she got to collect so many cool things - maybe they weren't so cool back in the day.

Inside the church

So this is a kind of horrifying statue inside the church of St. Bartholomew, who was an apostle of Christ and skinned alive as a martyr. This was carved by a student of DaVinci, and even though human dissection was forbidden by the church at the time, we are pretty sure that DaVinci's student dissected human bodies in order to get the realism in the muscles and tissues. Kind of sick.

The most beautiful thing about the inside was the stained glass. There was SO much of it - this is only one panel of over 25, and each little scene depicts a scene from the bible. Really, really pretty.

Outside the church in the square just outside the Duomo

The entryway to the Victor Emmanuel gallery

Even though Milan was the rainiest city we'd been to so far, we were amazed at the size of the city and the cleanliness of it. Usually big cities are kind of dirty (Rome was pretty dirty) but Milan was SO clean. 

This little statue is just outside of the La Scala opera house (which turned out to be WAY less cool than we thought - not even cool enough for a picture), and it was getting us geared up to see maybe the most famous painting from this man - Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. He spent many of his years in Milan, and so the city erected a statue in his honor. 

Before we went to see the painting though, we stopped at the best place in town for gelato, according to Rick Steves. It was so cold and rainy and Dave had to do his best to convince me to get some gelato from the place (I was thinking more along the lines of hot chocolate...), but he finally did and it was pretty tasty. I had white chocolate and caramel flavored.

Dave had walnut, nougat, and pecan. He was much more adventurous than me in his gelato-trying.

Finally, it was time for us to see The Last Supper. I have been excited about seeing this for MONTHS, since you have to get a reservation at least 3 months in advance. This had been on our agenda for the longest of any of our other stops. It was actually really hard to find too. It's in a church called the Santa Maria delle Grazie, and we had to ask about 5 different locals how to get there. By the time we did, we were SOAKED and FREEZING, but I almost didn't care because I was so excited.

Here we are outside the church.

This was a place where we, of course, couldn't take any pictures. They are actually really strict with how you can enter this place since the painting is so badly deteriorated. Leonardo had done the painting with a kind of experimental fresco design, and so it was already beginning to deteriorate just 6 years after the painting was completed. You can imagine how much it's deteriorated since then. They've since done touch-up work, and the painting is still very faint, but you can still see the vibrant colors. We actually had to go through several rooms to de-humidity ourselves so we didn't damage the painting further. The doors would close behind us, and then the doors in front of us would open. Because there are so many people that want to see the painting, they only allow 900 people in a day - that's 25 people every 15 minutes. Yeah - we could only stay and admire for 15 minutes before they kicked us out. I was so sad about that - I could have looked at the painting for at least an hour. 

Here's some cool information about the painting. I had no idea it was still in a church. I thought for sure it would have been transported to a museum, but it was exactly where it was painted over 500 years ago. That was a cool thing to think about. The church had actually asked DaVinci to paint a picture for the dining hall for the monks - this wasn't even in the main part of the church. It was in a dining hall! I had no idea. I also learned that the church had been bombed during WWII, but, miraculously, the wall holding the Last Supper was left untouched. Coincidence? I don't think so.

There was originally no door cut into this painting where Jesus' feet should be. The church decided to expand the door a few years later and they just cut out the part of the painting they needed to expand the door. This was a total bummer, because DaVinci had actually painted Jesus' feet lying on top of each other ready for the nail - a foreshadowing of his crucifixion. I wish I could have seen it.

Seeing this painting was incredible. It is a perfect Renaissance piece. It is balanced, mathematically correct, and the central focus is Christ. I absolutely loved looking at the faces of the disciples AND of Christ. Christ looks so sad, and the disciples are all feeling different emotions about Christ's declaration that one of them would betray him. My favorite reaction was of the disciple (I think it was James?? I can't remember) that is wearing light orange to the right of Jesus. It looked like he was saying, "Oh no....was it me? I'm so sorry if it will be me!" He looks completely anguished. That was the most sincere face I thought. I just stared at it forever. Dave noticed that Christ is doing two different things with his hands. One hand is clenched - maybe to show his worry and nervousness about the crucifixion to come - and the other hand is relaxed and open, welcoming God's will to be his own. Nice insight Dave! 

After only 15 short minutes (I don't think 15 minutes have ever passed so quickly in my life!), we were forced to leave. :( Seeing this fresco was pretty much a pilgrimage for both of us - for me because it was a beautiful, famous piece of art, for Dave because it was the central focus of one of his favorite books, The Da Vinci Code. We loved it so much. It was very reverent and peaceful inside. There was a really neat feeling in the little used-to-be dining hall. Amazing!

By the time we were finished with the Last Supper, we were ready to go back to our hotel. Our feet were SOAKED, we were FREEZING, and it was time to warm up. When we finally made it to our room I almost fainted with excitement. There was a heater that we could control ourselves! I immediately turned it up almost as high as it could go. They even provided us with little slippers to wear around the room. I knew this was going to be a great room.

Here's a picture of my cold, wet feet. This is what they looked like for the whole trip - I don't know why we didn't take a picture until now.

I was SO cold and had such a hard time warming up. I finally decided that what I needed was a nice hot shower. That totally did the trick. Here I am before...

and after! Yes! Finally feeling GOOD! This hotel even had a TV in it, and while I was in the shower Dave found a soccer game on TV and watched it. He was in heaven, and so was I.

Thanks heavens for the Hotel Garda! It was a lifesaver! Warm, quiet, peaceful, and dry!

After we warmed up, we were ready to venture outside again for dinner. I told Dave I couldn't go anywhere that was far away. I was finally warm and I didn't really want to get cold again. Luckily, there was a cute little place called the Niko Quick Bite right down the street from our hotel. We ate there, and we had the perfect dinner - hot chocolate and bean soup. Just what the Dr. ordered. Dave had one last pizza. It was delicious.

HOT CHOCOLATE! YES! YES! YES! It was heavenly.

After we had dinner, we bought some treats from this place for tomorrow morning's breakfast. We had to catch the bus to the airport at 6 a.m. to make it to our flight on time. We watched Monster's Inc. in bed until we couldn't stay awake anymore. We were trying to preserve our last night in Italy by staying awake as long as we could. We made it through about half of the movie before we were goners.

The next morning came very early. We got ready to go, ate our yummy treats for breakfast, and we were out the door right on time. We caught our bus and had no snags getting home. Just long, long plane rides back. Oh, and Dave finally caved at the JFK airport and ate....are you ready for this??...a BIG MAC! He tells me that he ALWAYS craves McDonalds, but is so health conscious that he wouldn't ever dream of eating one, even though he always always wants one. He figured though, that we were on vacation and the calories didn't count while we were traveling. I couldn't resist taking a picture just because if we were back at home this NEVER EVER would have happened.

He's excited and scared at the same time - this was a huge deal for him!

We LOVED our trip - it was absolutely the most wonderful trip we've ever been on. We made so many great memories and just had so much fun together. And even though it was the trip of a lifetime - we were excited to come home. As much as we love to travel, we are kind of homebodies, and when we're not traveling the world, home is our favorite place to be. :) There's just no place like it! 

P.S. We are already starting to plan our next trip. We have no idea when it will actually happen - I guess when our bank account gets back to normal and we have saved all our extra pennies again - but our next big trip is going to be....drum roll please.... LONDON!