ORIGINAL POST: 7 Mar 2008
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Its been a while since the last post...
A lot can happen in a week's worth of growth on a guy's beard. Last weekend, if you didn't know, was Leap Year Day weekend. My college here in Athens turned us loose saying, "Get out and do something and don't sit here all weekend."
So two friends and I decided to go all out. No little skiing trip up to northern Greece for us! No puddle-jump flight to an out-of-season Greek Island would suffice either. No, my friend, if we're going to spend a weekend away, we're gonna do it in style.
Where do you want to go? I don't know... Where do you want to go?
Italy would do...
So, upon our landing at the Milan Malpensa airport as the sun disappeared below the horizon, we boarded the Malpensa Express bus from the airport to Central Station. Finding that they run a deal for buy 3 tickets pay for two... that started off our budget traveling off well.
The bus dropped us off around the side of the platforms. To be dropped down in a foreign land, not speaking the language and nothing is in English, behind a train station, its dark, and none of the three of us have ever done ANYTHING like this before - it is a bit of a worrisome 5 minutes. My friend Tommy gets out his map with all the sights, I get out the Blackberry with GPRS and figure out what "YOU ARE HERE" is in Italian from the nearby street map, and Kyle told us which direction was which - he had a compass.
So, it only took about 10 minutes to figure this out. Its not an easy thing to do. Once we found out we were behind the train station, all was right with the world and we began our walk to the hostel.
Milan, Italy, is a fascinating place. Why? Because you'll just be walking along and come upon something like:
Alright... lets go there...
And then, it only gets better. You walk through here, past the McDonald's Cafe and the really expensive clothes and jewelry stores and the high-end restaurants... turn the corner and...
Seeing this for the first time at night - its so alien... its just completely unreal...
It took quite a walk from the Central Station to the Duomo to our hostel - which we had no reservations for... and got the last room... mostly down roads like:
...where it seems most hostels are located.
For my friends who will be there soon: our hostel - La Cordata - was extremely nice for the location and I fully recommend it. Its a little more expensive if you want to split a private room 3 or 4 ways, but I would say it definitely rivals most budget American hotels like Motel 6 and probably gets close to the Holiday Inns and Best Westerns. The beds are great. And, yes, even the shower heads were nice...
But the Milan nightlife is outstanding. Young people are out walking and talking and hanging out at cafes and taverns and restaurants. Down near the canals in Milan, there is a great little pizzeria called "Big Pizza" - of course it is - and you get a whole (American size large) pizza and a drink for 8Euro. The wood-oven fired pizza comes on a dinner plate and hangs off all sides.
I ate the whole thing.
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We woke up early the next morning with all intentions of getting to the location of da Vinci's Last Supper and getting to see it. We did not have reservations - they stick to these VERY strictly - and did not get in... yet...
And so... the three of us not being able to see the Last Supper on Friday morning changed the chronology of the rest of the trip. More on that soon...
So, with this failure... we went onto other things. I have to say, early morning Italy is a wonderful thing to witness. We walked down normal streets where normal people were opening up their shops, children of all ages were going to school, the little corner fruit stand owners were stacking their oranges and apples into nice pyramids and cranking their awnings out, people just out walking their dog...
I love crosswalk photography...
I also love being in the non-touristy areas of a place. The streets of Milan, Italy, is just that sort of place. Its extremely "real". The few sidewalk venders there are don't try to push their cheepy cheepy crap on you from all sides. In fact, I probably saw less than a dozen the whole time I was there. There's probably ordinances forbidding it - but so are there in Athens, but you still get it there quite a bit.
And we looked for the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Its a little off the beaten path as well and in a mess of streets that just end and change names at intersections.
So, it took a try or two. This is not it, by the way. This is a church covered in graffiti.
But it is completely worth the trouble to find. It has such master works as da Vinci's Portrait of a Musician and Rafael's preliminary cartoon sketch of his School of Athens that he used to template the real fresco.
Fascinating stuff to see up close...
Oh, and sorry to say, there are very few - if any - images from these major art galleries. They are completely off limit to cameras. In fact, if you can't put it in your backpack or bag, you have to put it in a locker - which they provide for free so its (mostly) secure. But just keep it in your backpack. They have no problems with that.
But, I digress...
We went back to the Duomo. And I've never seen such an extraordinary structure. Every spire, every column, every side, ever nook and cranny is covered with detail and statues all carved from the stone. All over the outside...
...and the inside...
...and up on the roof...
Well worth the 5Euro price to look down on Friday morning like the statues that adorn the spires have for centuries.
A good thing I noticed from atop the Duomo is the care that the Italian construction companies take in keeping the aesthetics of the buildings around the Duomo.
They cover the scaffolding and de-constructed building with a huge mural that matches the original building. What a great idea! Seeing the Parthenon completely encased in scaffolding was a bit distracting. I guess that would be hard to facade, though...
Also, to keep pigeons and other such birds from roosting on the building, they cover its precipices with...
Kinda freaky, really...
Poor pigeons...
Meet Tommy, one of my traveling companions...
After being mighty pleased by the Duomo, we returned to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.
Then, after seeing so many paintings by the masters, we moved on to the Milan Central Station for the train to Florence. More than I enjoy airports, I enjoy train stations. They are less tense and have a wider demographic.
It is a nice little break if you get there early enough.
Short stops and long tunnels dot the Lombardy countryside.
And interesting people out the windows...
...as well as inside.
Meet my other travel companion, Kyle.
We arrived in Florence shortly before nightfall.
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In the interest of loading time and HUGE blog posts, I'll break this into two chapters.
Stay tuned for that...
I have a few international phone calls to make.
;)
~Noah D.
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