July Trip
19/7 - In Transit (Italy-France)
Let's Go said Italian trains were efficient. I don't want to see what they consider an inefficient train system.
I was in the train station before 7am, and in the cafe everyone else was having a coffee (in the smallest plastic cups I'd ever seen - Turkish coffee size but in plastic, which I didn't know they made) or at the most a fruit juice for breakfast. I had a granite. It was a good deal - €1,50 for half a pint (it said so on the cup). The cashier was giving me odd looks. I think all the people were laughing at me, but heck - it was my last granite in Italy.
A stand at the train station was selling: "Top Anal" (the same series that gave us "Top Gay", perchance?), "Prostituta Miliardaria", "Transex incontri" and "Lesbian girls" (the cover looked like it had CG jap girls on it). Even the Pope can't stop this filth!
There was a young couple in the train with an older woman (their older sister?) who took pictures of the both of them. Then the younger girl took the camera and snapped a picture of herself in her seat. Camwhoring is one thing, but this is ridiculous.
A sign on a corridor in the train: "Smoking is not permitted on this train. Smoking is not permitted on all trains. Transgressors will be subject to a 7 euro fine. This provision applies regardless of any other (even contrary) indications that may be displayed in the coaches."
At Albenga, parts of the beach were full of umbrellas and people. I guess it was part of the Italian riviera. The sea was shimmering blue and boundless stretching to the horizon. Its expanse was broken occasionally by a yacht, verdant island or speedboat. I was amazed at how many people were free to go on vacation in July/August. Don't they need to work? Maybe it's too hot to work in summer, and people there only get to enjoy the sun, sea, sand and... swimming for 3 months a year so they seize the opportunity when they can; anyway the concept of a summer holiday doesn't work out in the land of Eternal Summer.
A 14 year old girl was wearing a yellow T-shirt with cap sleeves and the words "Hope. Faith. Love." I should get a customised one which reads: "Prudence. Temperance. Fortitude. Justice."
Most French trains also need to be booked - even non-TGV (TGV is the ultra-quick express line) ones, unless they're the slow or intra-regional ones. Gah. Why can't they be like Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium where you can just hop onto trains? It'd be so much easier to get my brother-in-law to drive me around, and someone might finally come in useful due to French knowledge.
The Italian and French rivieras are pretty much the same, with sun, sand, sea and... swimming. Though the part between Nice and Marseille is nicer, having fewer people. nice brown rock formating (?)
I checked the automated ticket machines at Marseille St Charles, but they were being wonky. I checked out the trains from Marseille to Arles and Marseille to Nimes the next day and later in the day, but they seemed to claim they were fully booked (later I realised "Reservation not possible" meant that seats on those trains were not sold out but rather not reservable). They also refused to accept my credit cards (I didn't have a Eurocard Mastercard, but surely my Visa should've worked!) The train timings were also quite weird, so I decided to skip Marseille (I only really wanted to see the Basilica, and maybe the islands, and this time I'd have more time for Nimes/Arles) and spend 3 nights in Nimes. Oddly enough, the Visa worked at the ticket office.
France was the first European country I'd come across this year with a youth discount on intra-country travel (though for some reason I didn't qualify for it when I bought the ticket in Milan). For the rest, the discount applied only on crossing borders. Conceivably, it *might* be cheaper to buy a ticket to travel further (thus crossing a border) to get a discount for the rest of the trip.
Most European train tickets are so big (airline boarding pass size). The Dutch are the best, having small slips of paper which are environmentally friendly.
2 French girls were doing maths beside me on the train. One was staring at the first page of a textbook that said "lnes" and instructed on how to solve simultaneous equations with 3 variables. Another was annotating a book with a pen. It was July! Why were they so kiasu?
A young French couple went into the area between train carriages and stopped in the gangway and kissed. Then the (transparent) carriage doors closed around them. Tsk.
L'origine de Bert
Showing posts with label travelogue - Italy 2006. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travelogue - Italy 2006. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
July Trip: 18/7 - Milan (Part 2)
July trip
18/7 - Milan (Part 2)
The next step was the Scala Opera House.
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, directed by Christopher Hogwood, was playing on 17th and 19th July. Unfortunately, I was only free on 18th July, which had Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and I was too tired to see something I'd never heard of. The whole of July only had these 2 operas playing, from the 3rd to the 21st, and there were performances everyday - but Sunday (damn Italians).
I think I'd been to an Opera House before in Vienna, but it was 8 years ago. Basically it was like being on the Muppet Show. There were boxes from the floor to the ciling, and the whole back wall of the chamber was filled with boxes. Unfortunately there wasn't a rehearsal; they were otherwise preparing for a show. The stage was huge and deep. Probably for the elephants.
There was a woman wearing a top where, at the back, the material split from her neck down and revealed her spine. And a white strap was visible midway down her back. Tsk tsk!
Ah Beng Tap
There was a museum with funky instruments, like a "hurdy-gurdy". There was also a painting of a woman called Giuditta Pasta. Uhh. (Of course, photography was banned)
A description of Cosi Fan Tutte went: "Finally, the geometrical grid seems to dissolve in the cariety and buoyancy of Mozart's music, in a puff of Mediterranean air that brings with it hopes of temptations" - I love the people who write these things.
On Don Giovanni: "With him the reassuring realm of comic opera opens to a different horizon, that of metaphysics." - Ditto
The longest, even if not the best, was about Le nozze di Figaro.
"The unity of time and place is respected in Le nozze di Figaro (1786), the events of which unfold during what Beaumarchais called “a mad day”. Revealed in that delimited space, with extraordinary variety and flexuosity, are the multifarious humanity and universality of the characters in this comic opera. Its forms, moreover, are interlocked in a development that has all the naturalness of life, where the Countess’s forgiveness attained after a thousand disguises, practical jokes and deceptions, becomes an absolute moral reference."
They had scale reconstructions of opea sets. Nice.
Lohengrin
The museum also had opera posters dating back to the 20s and 30s.
The woman at the counter in the Opera House bookshop said tickets were available in the metro, so I went to the Duomo metro, didn't find any tickets and once and for dismissed the thought of catching an opera not least it was to be in a foreign language (I'd fallen asleep during La Boheme), with a programme in Italian; I also didn't want to change into my crumpled pants and battered shoes. Then I realised she probably meant the other metro.
I still had some time, so I looked at my guidebook. Ambrosiana was supposed to be the better galleria, but it closed at 5:30pm and it was 4pm by the time I exited the opera house. The other galleria Di Brera, OTOH, closed at 7:30. I didn't want to be locked out again, and besides, the latter was cheaper, so I went there.
Weird magazines at a newsstand: "Hea" (? - Hen?), "Hentai cool girl free magazine", "Dojinshi", "Manga", "J-girls",k "Brazillian babes" and "Young 18" (which included free bikinis and was presumably for girls; maybe they were free-sized).
At the Galleria Di Brera, there was a reduction for EU citizens. I tried my luck and when I was asked for my document, I produced my student card. It worked, and I paid €2,50 instead of €5. Bloody hell - they keep all the good stuff for EU citizens. I should apply for Polish Citizenship.
Of course, once again photography and video were disallowed. Phones were also disallowed, supposedly in the interests of preservation; I should've run around waving my phone and yelling: "Haha! The radiation from my phone is degrading the works of art!". Lying bastards.
The works were also all undated, except for date of acquisition. Bah. Naturally, there was also nothing in English. Damn, I missed Berlin museums.
Giovanni Battista Cima di Conegliano - S. Pietro Martine e i ss
Nicola e Benedetta (guy with knife on head like partway sunk in)
(I assume this refers to a work in the galleria)
There was a painting of a saint with red-brownsplotches all over him ("Ss giobbe e gottub")
probably former <-- more of my scribbling I don't understand I was tired and wanted to sit on a chair and sleep. Even if photography was not nominally disallowed I also would've had no energy unless I saw something with the galvanising potential of David's Les Sabines, not least since taking acceptable photographs in art gallery conditions needs effort (and nothing even approached his standard, so). Lorenzo Lotto's Pieta is the first Pieta I've seen where angels help support the body. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi's Cristo Deriso was interesting. He was crying and there was little blood, unlike in Faces of Death VI. His deriders were very dark, almost blending into the background. At a first glance, you'd only see him. detto il sodoma - I wrote the name of this work but none of the notes above seem to fit it. Throughout Italy, people were selling T-shirts and other merchandise featuring the Sistine Madonna, but it's currently in Dresden. Hah!
GB Benvenuti's In Crocifissione had 1 angel holding up one cup to catch blood coming from his left palm and another holding 2 cups to catch blood from his right palm and right chest. Yucks.
Luca Signorelli's La Madonna Del Latte - I'd seen the Virgin Mary breastfeeding before, but this was the first time I'd seen her whole breast and nipple through a slit in an ancient inner garment meant for breastfeeding purposes. How seditious. It must be burnt to avoid offence.
Guido Remi's I Santi Pietro e Paolo - Usuaully in representations the two just stand apart. Here they were talking to each other. Peter was probably saying: "What have you done? I may have the keys to heaven but you've the keys to their minds through the success of your version of the faith."
Very weird. San Luca in atto di dipingere la Madonna col Bambino (Scuola di anversa, del 16th century) showed an old woman painting the Virgin and Infant from life.
Sebastian Ricci's (?) Martinio di S. Erasmo was gruesome. A machine was being used to drive a stake through his stomach and his intestines could be seen coming out.
Francesco Hayez's Il Bacio was very nice - 2 young lovers in the throes of a passionate embrace. I'd never seen this as a subject before.
Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ - Christ looked like a vampire had drained all of his blood - the body was that pallid. It was also an interesting move to use this perspective, with the feet at the bottom of the painting and yet somehow in the viewer's face.
Statue in Brera courtyeard
Seen on Penthouse cover: "25 orgasms inducing songs" ???. It sounds like an article you'd find in Cosmo. Then again, Playboy *did* have "The conflict between faith and reason".
Weird street (Via Fiori Chiari). Perhaps the bumps were to prevent cars from entering.
Booths in the Milan subway offered 4 passport pictures for €3. Wah. So cheap.
I had dinner in a self-service cafeteria (they called it a restaurant). It wasn't too bad - €0,80 for water, €0,60 for 2 rolls, €7,50 for Octopus and €6 for Turkey - €14,90 in all; 1/2 - 2/3 the price of a real restaurant. It still tasted okay considering it was pre-cooked.
lavoro
salute
amore (I have no idea what this means)
There were ads showing women's grimacing faces as they shaved their legs (but then, the looks could've been of ecstasy and not only agony). Then they showed a happy woman using another shaver - Philips's new product "Satinelle Ice" - a shaver for female legs. They also sponsored horoscopes to brand their product, which was quite annoying.
One of the Milan train stations
The 2 PRCs in my hostel room got conned by one string man, who tied strings around their wrists, took a picture and asked for €2 (€1 each). Eventually they bargained it down to €1. Nice to see that competition is Milan is driving costs down for consumers, as opposed to places like Paris where they demand €10.
Besides banning photography and video to earn more money through the sale of postcards and other souvenirs, here're more ways scummy museums can rip off visitors. As a bonus, they can claim they're doing these things for conservation.
- Humidity damages artworks, so visitors have to wear masks with filters which remove the humidity from their breath. These masks, of course, can be rented from the museum for a nominal fee
- Light reflecting off glases causes paintings to dull. So they have to be removed or clip-on lenses affixed to them
- Light in general damages works, so works are stores in dark rooms. Visitors can rent low light goggles if they want to see anything
- Wheelchairs can knock into works, so the services of a specially trained guide have to be rented
18/7 - Milan (Part 2)
The next step was the Scala Opera House.
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, directed by Christopher Hogwood, was playing on 17th and 19th July. Unfortunately, I was only free on 18th July, which had Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and I was too tired to see something I'd never heard of. The whole of July only had these 2 operas playing, from the 3rd to the 21st, and there were performances everyday - but Sunday (damn Italians).
I think I'd been to an Opera House before in Vienna, but it was 8 years ago. Basically it was like being on the Muppet Show. There were boxes from the floor to the ciling, and the whole back wall of the chamber was filled with boxes. Unfortunately there wasn't a rehearsal; they were otherwise preparing for a show. The stage was huge and deep. Probably for the elephants.
There was a woman wearing a top where, at the back, the material split from her neck down and revealed her spine. And a white strap was visible midway down her back. Tsk tsk!
Ah Beng Tap
There was a museum with funky instruments, like a "hurdy-gurdy". There was also a painting of a woman called Giuditta Pasta. Uhh. (Of course, photography was banned)
A description of Cosi Fan Tutte went: "Finally, the geometrical grid seems to dissolve in the cariety and buoyancy of Mozart's music, in a puff of Mediterranean air that brings with it hopes of temptations" - I love the people who write these things.
On Don Giovanni: "With him the reassuring realm of comic opera opens to a different horizon, that of metaphysics." - Ditto
The longest, even if not the best, was about Le nozze di Figaro.
"The unity of time and place is respected in Le nozze di Figaro (1786), the events of which unfold during what Beaumarchais called “a mad day”. Revealed in that delimited space, with extraordinary variety and flexuosity, are the multifarious humanity and universality of the characters in this comic opera. Its forms, moreover, are interlocked in a development that has all the naturalness of life, where the Countess’s forgiveness attained after a thousand disguises, practical jokes and deceptions, becomes an absolute moral reference."
They had scale reconstructions of opea sets. Nice.
Lohengrin
The museum also had opera posters dating back to the 20s and 30s.
The woman at the counter in the Opera House bookshop said tickets were available in the metro, so I went to the Duomo metro, didn't find any tickets and once and for dismissed the thought of catching an opera not least it was to be in a foreign language (I'd fallen asleep during La Boheme), with a programme in Italian; I also didn't want to change into my crumpled pants and battered shoes. Then I realised she probably meant the other metro.
I still had some time, so I looked at my guidebook. Ambrosiana was supposed to be the better galleria, but it closed at 5:30pm and it was 4pm by the time I exited the opera house. The other galleria Di Brera, OTOH, closed at 7:30. I didn't want to be locked out again, and besides, the latter was cheaper, so I went there.
Weird magazines at a newsstand: "Hea" (? - Hen?), "Hentai cool girl free magazine", "Dojinshi", "Manga", "J-girls",k "Brazillian babes" and "Young 18" (which included free bikinis and was presumably for girls; maybe they were free-sized).
At the Galleria Di Brera, there was a reduction for EU citizens. I tried my luck and when I was asked for my document, I produced my student card. It worked, and I paid €2,50 instead of €5. Bloody hell - they keep all the good stuff for EU citizens. I should apply for Polish Citizenship.
Of course, once again photography and video were disallowed. Phones were also disallowed, supposedly in the interests of preservation; I should've run around waving my phone and yelling: "Haha! The radiation from my phone is degrading the works of art!". Lying bastards.
The works were also all undated, except for date of acquisition. Bah. Naturally, there was also nothing in English. Damn, I missed Berlin museums.
Giovanni Battista Cima di Conegliano - S. Pietro Martine e i ss
Nicola e Benedetta (guy with knife on head like partway sunk in)
(I assume this refers to a work in the galleria)
There was a painting of a saint with red-brownsplotches all over him ("Ss giobbe e gottub")
probably former <-- more of my scribbling I don't understand I was tired and wanted to sit on a chair and sleep. Even if photography was not nominally disallowed I also would've had no energy unless I saw something with the galvanising potential of David's Les Sabines, not least since taking acceptable photographs in art gallery conditions needs effort (and nothing even approached his standard, so). Lorenzo Lotto's Pieta is the first Pieta I've seen where angels help support the body. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi's Cristo Deriso was interesting. He was crying and there was little blood, unlike in Faces of Death VI. His deriders were very dark, almost blending into the background. At a first glance, you'd only see him. detto il sodoma - I wrote the name of this work but none of the notes above seem to fit it. Throughout Italy, people were selling T-shirts and other merchandise featuring the Sistine Madonna, but it's currently in Dresden. Hah!
GB Benvenuti's In Crocifissione had 1 angel holding up one cup to catch blood coming from his left palm and another holding 2 cups to catch blood from his right palm and right chest. Yucks.
Luca Signorelli's La Madonna Del Latte - I'd seen the Virgin Mary breastfeeding before, but this was the first time I'd seen her whole breast and nipple through a slit in an ancient inner garment meant for breastfeeding purposes. How seditious. It must be burnt to avoid offence.
Guido Remi's I Santi Pietro e Paolo - Usuaully in representations the two just stand apart. Here they were talking to each other. Peter was probably saying: "What have you done? I may have the keys to heaven but you've the keys to their minds through the success of your version of the faith."
Very weird. San Luca in atto di dipingere la Madonna col Bambino (Scuola di anversa, del 16th century) showed an old woman painting the Virgin and Infant from life.
Sebastian Ricci's (?) Martinio di S. Erasmo was gruesome. A machine was being used to drive a stake through his stomach and his intestines could be seen coming out.
Francesco Hayez's Il Bacio was very nice - 2 young lovers in the throes of a passionate embrace. I'd never seen this as a subject before.
Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ - Christ looked like a vampire had drained all of his blood - the body was that pallid. It was also an interesting move to use this perspective, with the feet at the bottom of the painting and yet somehow in the viewer's face.
Statue in Brera courtyeard
Seen on Penthouse cover: "25 orgasms inducing songs" ???. It sounds like an article you'd find in Cosmo. Then again, Playboy *did* have "The conflict between faith and reason".
Weird street (Via Fiori Chiari). Perhaps the bumps were to prevent cars from entering.
Booths in the Milan subway offered 4 passport pictures for €3. Wah. So cheap.
I had dinner in a self-service cafeteria (they called it a restaurant). It wasn't too bad - €0,80 for water, €0,60 for 2 rolls, €7,50 for Octopus and €6 for Turkey - €14,90 in all; 1/2 - 2/3 the price of a real restaurant. It still tasted okay considering it was pre-cooked.
lavoro
salute
amore (I have no idea what this means)
There were ads showing women's grimacing faces as they shaved their legs (but then, the looks could've been of ecstasy and not only agony). Then they showed a happy woman using another shaver - Philips's new product "Satinelle Ice" - a shaver for female legs. They also sponsored horoscopes to brand their product, which was quite annoying.
One of the Milan train stations
The 2 PRCs in my hostel room got conned by one string man, who tied strings around their wrists, took a picture and asked for €2 (€1 each). Eventually they bargained it down to €1. Nice to see that competition is Milan is driving costs down for consumers, as opposed to places like Paris where they demand €10.
Besides banning photography and video to earn more money through the sale of postcards and other souvenirs, here're more ways scummy museums can rip off visitors. As a bonus, they can claim they're doing these things for conservation.
- Humidity damages artworks, so visitors have to wear masks with filters which remove the humidity from their breath. These masks, of course, can be rented from the museum for a nominal fee
- Light reflecting off glases causes paintings to dull. So they have to be removed or clip-on lenses affixed to them
- Light in general damages works, so works are stores in dark rooms. Visitors can rent low light goggles if they want to see anything
- Wheelchairs can knock into works, so the services of a specially trained guide have to be rented
Post ID: 115963868884766399
Sunday, October 01, 2006
July Trip: 18/7 - Milan (Part 1)
July trip
18/7 - Milan (Part 1)
I felt a bit guilty everytime I poured out tepid or lukewarm water from my bottle to fill it from a cold fountain until I realised that with free flowing fountains (ie Almost all of them), the same amount of cold water would've been wasted anyway.
Trying my luck, I showed up at Santa Maria delle Grazie early in the day but of course tickets were sold out for the next 2 weeks. I asked the woman when peak period was, and she said it was June, July and August, as well as December, which was surprising. With only 25 people allowed in each 15 minutes and it being closed from 1978-99, it was no wonder they were sold out for so long. Interestingly enough, the World Heritage sign was in English, Italian - and French (hah!)
Since I was there anyway, I checked out the church itself since it was a World Heritage site too, with the "complex and perfect architecture of Bramante's church". It was quite interesting - the vaults, arches and part of the dome were decorated with geometric symbols. I almost thought it was a mosque.
Altar
Ceiling
Church from cloisters, Cloisters pond with frogs.
Exterior of church
Pigeons
Unfortunately, the Duomo was under renovation.
Duomo side
Photographs were allowed in the Duomo if pictures were not taken of the priests or congregation. My brother-in-law would have been thrown out.
Duomo front
Giugno (the statue didn't say anything else - maybe he had no surname)
There were lots of Indian men in the Duomo square who were experts at manipulating pigeons (I counted 4 Indians and 1 old Italian - no wonder people oppose immigration!). Where they walked, pigeons followed. At various times, pigeons suddenly flew across the square en-masse, presumably due to things they did. They sold their services to tourists who'd pose with pigeons all over them (due to their holding birdfeed in their hands) and having their pictures taken with the men's polaroids.
I'd been inside a lot of churches, but the Milan Duomo still raised goosebumbs, since it seemed to be one of the finest examples of Late Gothic.
Nave
At first I was wondering at how wonderful the design was, letting in so much light. Then I looked up and realised it was electric floodlights. Gah.
Altar
Stained glass
Altar of St Agnes
Assorted carvings
Dessicated man
BS 'art'
In the crypt there was some funny exhibition, and there was a BS exhibit where the "artist" had taken scenes from some movie about the life of Christ, muted the soundtrack and places a huge black square in the centre blocking out most of the film's image; the lack of audio distraction was supposed to focus the viewer's mind on the message, and the action you could see on the borders was supposed to be enough to suggest what was happening and spark the imagination. I can do this sort of thing too. Maybe I should do that for footage of the NDP or the NDP rally.
San Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal of Milan, 1538-84
There was a sign advertising "Jesus on the web" - jesus1.it. I was wondering why there was a 1 inside. Maybe it used to lead to a porn site. Or it was a case of cyber-squatting! (I just tried it and it didn't lead to anything)
Pool with canale di adduzione and scarico leading to it, abside della basilica cattedrale, 4th century
There was a Paleochristian baptistry under the cathedral.
Duomo
There were police standing around at the side of the Duomo. Their boots and tights looked very smooth. It would be sexier if they were tighter.
At 11:50 I got to the entrance to the steps and found they were closed till 2pm. I wanted to take the lift but eventually decided against it.
1 girl posed for a picture with the policeman manning the metal detector at the elevator. Wah, so relac.
In the square, I saw lots of black men holding handfuls of strings. Some tried to offer them to me. Fortunately, I had been clued in to their evil plot already!
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele - the world's oldest shopping mall
Castello Sforzesco
The many museums housed here were insanely cheap - €3 got you admission to all of them, €1,50 was the reduced ticket and €15 got you an annual ticket (€15 for reduced). Of course, photography and video were forbidden.
When walking around Castello Sforzesco, I felt tired. 7 hours of sleep wasn't enough, somehow. The heat and travel fatigue were getting to me again and I wanted to return to my room and sleep (but then it'd be too hot, so). Maybe I just hadn't had my dose of caffeine yet. I wondered where to go: the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana sounded good, but a specific case of travel overload was art overload. It was worse than church overload. So I decided to go to the Opera House - one thing I hadn't seen this year. And then I'd scale the Duomo.
At 2pm, the number of pigeons in the Duomo square were at most half of those in the morning. Some were hiding behind the statue of the guy on horseback. Smart.
I saw a man with a string around his wrist taking a picture of his family with a black string man. Maybe instead of charging for the string, he charged for the photographs.
Raphael did 2 School of Athens. Gah.
I don't know why Italians like to end their words with vowels so much.
Since enough time had passed, after the Castello, I went back to the Duomo to scale it.
Redux
The route to the top wound its way along the roof where the flying buttresses met the walls. It was the first time I walked on this part of a church, I think.
Buttresses and spires
Roof
Skyline
Me on top
If you wonder why my hair is always tied up in these shots, it's because it was damn hot in July, and if you wonder why it's always so messy it's because in choosing between the conflicting priorities of comfort, neatness, minimal effort required and preventing traction alopecia, neatness was the least of my worries. Besides which, I'd less than 2 years of practice, hardly did so and had no teachers/fellow students.
Sculpture
I saw a guy in a motorised wheelchair buggy (4 wheels, not 2) and a woman was sitting in his lap. Both looked very pleased with themselves. Uhh.
18/7 - Milan (Part 1)
I felt a bit guilty everytime I poured out tepid or lukewarm water from my bottle to fill it from a cold fountain until I realised that with free flowing fountains (ie Almost all of them), the same amount of cold water would've been wasted anyway.
Trying my luck, I showed up at Santa Maria delle Grazie early in the day but of course tickets were sold out for the next 2 weeks. I asked the woman when peak period was, and she said it was June, July and August, as well as December, which was surprising. With only 25 people allowed in each 15 minutes and it being closed from 1978-99, it was no wonder they were sold out for so long. Interestingly enough, the World Heritage sign was in English, Italian - and French (hah!)
Since I was there anyway, I checked out the church itself since it was a World Heritage site too, with the "complex and perfect architecture of Bramante's church". It was quite interesting - the vaults, arches and part of the dome were decorated with geometric symbols. I almost thought it was a mosque.
Altar
Ceiling
Church from cloisters, Cloisters pond with frogs.
Exterior of church
Pigeons
Unfortunately, the Duomo was under renovation.
Duomo side
Photographs were allowed in the Duomo if pictures were not taken of the priests or congregation. My brother-in-law would have been thrown out.
Duomo front
Giugno (the statue didn't say anything else - maybe he had no surname)
There were lots of Indian men in the Duomo square who were experts at manipulating pigeons (I counted 4 Indians and 1 old Italian - no wonder people oppose immigration!). Where they walked, pigeons followed. At various times, pigeons suddenly flew across the square en-masse, presumably due to things they did. They sold their services to tourists who'd pose with pigeons all over them (due to their holding birdfeed in their hands) and having their pictures taken with the men's polaroids.
I'd been inside a lot of churches, but the Milan Duomo still raised goosebumbs, since it seemed to be one of the finest examples of Late Gothic.
Nave
At first I was wondering at how wonderful the design was, letting in so much light. Then I looked up and realised it was electric floodlights. Gah.
Altar
Stained glass
Altar of St Agnes
Assorted carvings
Dessicated man
BS 'art'
In the crypt there was some funny exhibition, and there was a BS exhibit where the "artist" had taken scenes from some movie about the life of Christ, muted the soundtrack and places a huge black square in the centre blocking out most of the film's image; the lack of audio distraction was supposed to focus the viewer's mind on the message, and the action you could see on the borders was supposed to be enough to suggest what was happening and spark the imagination. I can do this sort of thing too. Maybe I should do that for footage of the NDP or the NDP rally.
San Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal of Milan, 1538-84
There was a sign advertising "Jesus on the web" - jesus1.it. I was wondering why there was a 1 inside. Maybe it used to lead to a porn site. Or it was a case of cyber-squatting! (I just tried it and it didn't lead to anything)
Pool with canale di adduzione and scarico leading to it, abside della basilica cattedrale, 4th century
There was a Paleochristian baptistry under the cathedral.
Duomo
There were police standing around at the side of the Duomo. Their boots and tights looked very smooth. It would be sexier if they were tighter.
At 11:50 I got to the entrance to the steps and found they were closed till 2pm. I wanted to take the lift but eventually decided against it.
1 girl posed for a picture with the policeman manning the metal detector at the elevator. Wah, so relac.
In the square, I saw lots of black men holding handfuls of strings. Some tried to offer them to me. Fortunately, I had been clued in to their evil plot already!
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele - the world's oldest shopping mall
Castello Sforzesco
The many museums housed here were insanely cheap - €3 got you admission to all of them, €1,50 was the reduced ticket and €15 got you an annual ticket (€15 for reduced). Of course, photography and video were forbidden.
When walking around Castello Sforzesco, I felt tired. 7 hours of sleep wasn't enough, somehow. The heat and travel fatigue were getting to me again and I wanted to return to my room and sleep (but then it'd be too hot, so). Maybe I just hadn't had my dose of caffeine yet. I wondered where to go: the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana sounded good, but a specific case of travel overload was art overload. It was worse than church overload. So I decided to go to the Opera House - one thing I hadn't seen this year. And then I'd scale the Duomo.
At 2pm, the number of pigeons in the Duomo square were at most half of those in the morning. Some were hiding behind the statue of the guy on horseback. Smart.
I saw a man with a string around his wrist taking a picture of his family with a black string man. Maybe instead of charging for the string, he charged for the photographs.
Raphael did 2 School of Athens. Gah.
I don't know why Italians like to end their words with vowels so much.
Since enough time had passed, after the Castello, I went back to the Duomo to scale it.
Redux
The route to the top wound its way along the roof where the flying buttresses met the walls. It was the first time I walked on this part of a church, I think.
Buttresses and spires
Roof
Skyline
Me on top
If you wonder why my hair is always tied up in these shots, it's because it was damn hot in July, and if you wonder why it's always so messy it's because in choosing between the conflicting priorities of comfort, neatness, minimal effort required and preventing traction alopecia, neatness was the least of my worries. Besides which, I'd less than 2 years of practice, hardly did so and had no teachers/fellow students.
Sculpture
I saw a guy in a motorised wheelchair buggy (4 wheels, not 2) and a woman was sitting in his lap. Both looked very pleased with themselves. Uhh.
Post ID: 115954832518200297
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