Day 49 - Friday 21 June - Milan

Friday 21 June

So today we were tourists.  We caught the train 1 station, then changed lines and went to San Ambroglio station, to St Ambrose's basilica.  He was the bishop of Milan in C4, and was quite a stirrer.   H authorised the building of this church, and is lying in state in the crypt, with 2 others who were martyred.

 The church building was rebuilt in C12, but is pretty much the same since then.  There are pieces of ancient stone work incorporated into the courtyard walls.

 The 'ambo' - the pulpit for reading the gospel.

Then we walked for about 20mins to Santa Maria delle Grazie church.  This was a monastery back in C15 when Leonardo painted 'the last supper' on the wall in the refectory.  We sat around for a while, then went looking for our guided tour, which took us through the church which was damaged by a bomb in WW2 (also damaging one corner of the painting), and around the cloister.

 

photo of the sandbagging done to safeguard the fresco before the bombing

Visits are strictly timed, and like many of these places you have to go through security checks, and also here through various doors to gradually cut out the pollution.  But we finally made it for our 15mins. 

Although it has only just been restored, it is still in subdued colours, though some advertising has very vivid colours.  We were told that this latest restoration has been done using some cotton base, and if in the future a better method is discovered, this stuff can be peeled off without damaging the original any more.
At the other end is the Crucifixion (1495) by Montorfan, and there is also a small 3D plaque for visually imparied people.

We got a tram back the the centre, and circum-ambulated the duomo before lunch.

Then we turned up at the ticket office at 14:40 ready for our guided  tour.  We had individual headsets again.  First we walked through the left aisle of the duomo, looking at different ages of different pieces and sections.

  columns like giant trees in a forest

 

 One of 3 stained glass windows behind the alter

Then we went downstairs to the C4 remains, in particular an octagonal baptistry, which is marked out on the pavement above.  We retraced our steps, then went outside and around to the lift, which takes the hard work out of it all. 

 

We were able to see many of the statues and gargoyles up close, which was great.  Then we went up to the second level terrace, and it was there that our tour ended.  So we walked about a bit more, taking lots of pics, then went back down, and our ticket got us into the cathedral again for the bits that we'd not seen earlier.

 Looking in across the trancept

 The piazza

 Tradition says that Mary has to the the highest thing in town, so when they built some skyscrapers, they made some small copies of her and put them on the tops.  So she is always going to be highest.

A grotesque of gargoyles.

in the middle of the baptistry

We left about 18:00, got our train, and found the restaurant we'd been eying off for the last couple of days because of their advertised E10 meal.  But that is only lunchtimes, so we went on further and found another place closer to home.  It happened to be the family-run restaurant recommended by our host.  We were the first 2 in, but by the time we left there were about 30 diners, and at least 15 pizzas had gone too.  And we had pud to celebrate our last night in Italy.