I woke up this morning and was quite dismayed to find that my jeans and shoes were still wet from Bergamo yesterday. After blow-drying them to a less-damp state, I was off to the center of town to meet Christine for breakfast. We went back to the café by the church and I had a honey-filled wheat croissant. It was really good, but not quite as delicious as some other things I’ve had so far.
Christine’s next lesson was in Milano so we took the bus together to Brescia. The train wasn’t for another hour so we grabbed some lunch (another crudo e mozzarella panini). After lunch we parted ways so Christine could get to her next lesson on time.
The train to Milano is a little over an hour, but I actually really enjoy the train time. It gives me time to catch up on all of the reading I missed out on during the semester. I got off the train and onto the metro which I took to the Duomo. I wasn’t quite prepared for what I was about to see when I came out of the metro. I came out of the stairwell and was met with this:
As you can see by the people walking around, it’s HUGE. The outside walls and the doors are all intricately carved.
The inside is even more spectacular. There are huge windows of stained glass and paintings and sculptures all throughout. It was too dark to get a picture that wasn’t horribly blurry, but if you look at it from far away it looks okay.
After reveling in the awesomeness of the Duomo, I went to the Museum of Science and Technology that has a lot of Da Vinci’s sketches and models, as well as other cool science-y stuff. Da Vinci had so many crazy and amazing ideas. This one was a design for a personal wing. It goes in the crazy category.
But there were so many other inventions with boats and bridges and dredging machines. And he had ideas about anatomy and math and pretty much anything you can think of, he had an idea for. It was very cool to see everything in model form.
Another section of the museum had a bunch of old musical instruments from harpsichords to clarinets to violins. There was also a clock exhibit, a communication exhibit that chronicled the advances in radio and television technology, a manufacturing area that had a bunch of old machines used to make nails and other parts, and a small section on transportation that had one of these bikes that I was never really sure existed until I saw it today:
I mean really, how do you even get up there, let alone ride it? To give you an idea of how tall it is, it’s taller than I am. It just seems like a silly way to get around.
I finished going through the museum and decided to storm yet another castle: Castello Sforzesco. I’m really starting to think I need to get myself a castle. They just look so awesome.
I also got to participate in some dog-wrangling today. While walking around the grounds, there was a man trying to get a hold of his dog. It was quite entertaining watching this guy as he would get close to the dog and then the dog would sprint away. Eventually the dog ran right in my direction so I blocked his path until his owner could get to me and put him back on the leash. He seemed very grateful for the help.
The rest of the castle was less uneventful, but still epic. There’s something so whimsical about the idea of living in a castle. It probably wasn’t very much fun what with all of the getting attacked and such, but I’d still like to think that it was.
By the time I left the castle I was completely exhausted and the skies were threatening to open up so took the metro back to the train station and took the train back home. I liked Milano, but it kind of reminded me of a little of New York City. There are cool things to do there, but it doesn’t have the charm of the other little towns I’ve been to so far. It also has more tourist traps which means more people hassling you. I got mocked by a guy for saying no to him trying to sell me corn to feed the pigeons. Not so charming, Milano.
Anyway, I met up with Christine at a bar/restaurant by her school and we had piadinas for dinner. Mine had arugula, some kind of smoked ham, and grana (a super delicious cheese). I also booked my room for three nights in Venice next week! I am so excited to get back there. But for tomorrow, Cremona take 2 and Mantova!
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