13 June Milano

With last night’s limoncello nightcap asserting its presence on us after a night of sleep, we gathered ourselves together for sightseeing. Thankfully the Metro would be our friend today, and much less of a mob scene than the Friday after-work commuters.

First stop: the Milan Duomo. This thing is a beast. Gothic in every sense of the word – spires, flying buttresses, stone gargoyles staring you down. Construction started in 1386 and wasn’t finished until 1950. Six hundred years. The Milanese actually had a saying for something that dragged on forever: “like building the Duomo.” At least they had a sense of humor about it. Walking around and taking it all in, I noticed it seemed to double as a pilgrimage site for the gothic youth. Given the architecture, I completely get it.

We skipped the rooftop. Turns out you need tickets bought in advance. Our itinerary planning strikes again.

Next door is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world’s oldest shopping malls, built between 1865 and 1877. A soaring glass and iron arcade named after the first king of unified Italy. The floors are inlaid with mosaics representing the four regions of Italy, and there’s a tradition of spinning your heel on the mosaic bull in the Turin panel for good luck. Every tourist there was putting their phone down on the bull for a selfie. We skipped the good luck spin.

From there we walked to Castello Sforzesco. The short version: built in 1358, torn down by an angry public when the ruling family died out, rebuilt by the guy who married the dead duke’s daughter, then used as stables by Napoleon. Leonardo da Vinci lived and worked there for sixteen years, designed the moats, and painted a ceiling. Napoleon converted that ceiling room into a stable. That’s not a metaphor for anything, it just happened.

Around the fountain was a bunch of girls try to encourage FOMO from their Instagram influencer presents. I gave it a try.

Seeing the castle was great. Getting through it was another matter. The courtyards were a delight, but what should have been a leisurely stroll through history was more of a stifling heat trudge. We found a shady spot to recover and then moved on through a pretty nice park. Along the way we stumbled into the Triennale di Milano, a building used to show off art. We are not art people, but we very much enjoyed the air conditioning and the bathrooms.

The last stop was Arco della Pace. Napoleon commissioned it in 1807 as a victory arch to celebrate himself. He fell from power before it was finished. The Austrians completed it in 1838, renamed it the Arch of Peace, and pointed it toward Switzerland. Finishing your enemy’s victory monument and calling it a peace arch is a very specific kind of petty that I can respect.

And that was the sightseeing Milan had to offer. This place is not Firenze or Roma. It has its Duomo and its Napoleonic heritage. Other than that, it’s not a pretty city.

There was a Pam bucket list item that needed checking off: cannoli. I can’t eat anything crunchy, but the cream filling was quite tasty. Worth noting: cannoli is a Sicilian delicacy. We got ours in Milan. Hilarious.

We headed back to the BnB with the day’s sites behind us. On the Metro ride, a group clearly heading for the airport got targeted by pickpockets. Their cash was lifted right out of their wallets and the wallets left behind. We felt appropriately smug about our security measures.

Back at the BnB, it was too early for dinner – restaurants don’t open until 6:30, and it was 3. We watched a movie before asking ourselves why we were consuming visual media in a BnB in Italy. There wasn’t much to this part of the city, but we went out anyway and walked the residential streets. We found a park to sit in and recover from the heat. As we sat, a loud, obnoxious chattering started up from the trees. Turns out Milan has wild parakeets, monk parakeets and ring-necked parakeets, escaped pets that liked Italy enough to stay and apparently never shut up. Feral, loud, and completely unbothered by the fact that they don’t belong there. Honestly, relatable.

We killed enough time to make it to dinner at Ristorante Pizzeria San Mina. The pictures had given me high hopes. It was fine, the kind of pizza I could have gotten back home. Not what I was expecting from the country that invented the thing. Pam had the cacio e pepe. We paid and moved on.

Unless there is a burning need to visit Milan, I would skip it. Tomorrow is Venice. Two full days to round out the tour of Italy. Let’s see what trouble we can get into.