day nine:
Mom and Amelia have a complete lack of confidence in my ability to get us to our destination without getting us lost. We set out this morning to start our day at the Castello Sforzesco. the castle is a pretty spectacular example of fourteenth century castles in Italy.
the interior is entirely made of different museums which is pretty cool. We started with art collection in the civic museum, worked our way through the ancient art museum (I somehow didnt get my fill of ancient and renaissance art while in florence), the Egyptian and prehistoric sections of milan’s archaeological museum (Amelia is not okay with dead bodies by the way. after seeing the popes and several martyrs in the churches in rome one would think she’d be okay with mummys. not so much, they completely freak her out.) and the furniture museum (medieval to modern period. i’m highly unimpressed with the “modern” furniture. amelia really liked the baroque/french style furniture and we were all blown away by the boxes that looked like buildings that had secret locking compartments in addition to normal compartments for people to hide things in. they were really cool looking).
after spending the morning there we headed down one of the main boulevards towards Milan’s shopping district and il duomo. going towards il duomo from this angle was interesting because you could only catch glimpses of the shining white spires from over the tops of other buildings until you hit the main square thats in front of it. you emerge into the square and the cathedral dominates the view. as well it should considering it is the 4th largest cathedral in the world and the second largest in italy behind st. peters in rome. of course calling it il duomo is kind of a misnomer as duomo means cathedral and is used in reference to all cathedrals. in this case its in reference to the cathedral of Milano.
the entirety of milan circles the duomo which is at the central point of the roman city that formerly existed on the site. construction of the duomo began in the thirteen hundreds and continued for centuries. the installment of the final gate in 1965 is considered the completion of construction on the duomo even though there are still blocks of marble for statues that havent been completed. that means that il duomo was under construction for five hundred and seventy nine years. the end result is pretty spectacular.
while beautiful from a distance, it is only up close (on the roof) that one can appreciate the thousands of statues that dot the surface of the spires. the white marble all but glows in the sunlight and the contract between the church, the glass galleria and the surrounding greek revival style buildings is sharp. the interior is no less amazing than the exterior; stained glass and sculpture lining the exterior walls, the floor is a design of different marbles and the statue of san bartolomeo as beautiful and horrifying as expected (statue of the saint who was flayed and who stands with his own skin a macabre cloak).
galleria vittorio emanuele II is a shining example of nineteenth century arcades. the cross shaped building’s ceiling is made entirely from glass and on sunny days that is the primary method of illumination. this highlights the pale stone interior facade and the mosaic floor. the shops in the galleria are everything from mcdonalds to prada, gucci and louis vuitton.
after shopping around there and in the fashion rich streets behind the galleria we called it a day and headed back to the canal area near the hotel for dinner. it turned out to be dinner and a show as as a waiter from the next restaurant over had to chase down a woman who was trying to duck her tab.
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