It's been a heck of a week (month, really) for me, but I'm finally back with another Italy travel blog. I thought I was going to be able to post these every 2-3 days... then I woke up Wednesday morning to about 30 emails from my parents, saying that my mom had broken her leg in a particularly bad manner and they were in a hospital in Rome waiting for surgery. Not a good thing to wake up to, especially the day before they were supposed to come home. So I've spent the last few days figuring out how they're going to get home, while my dad has been figuring out the actual medical care and how to handle their extended time in Italy. Needless to say, it's been a pretty stressful time for all three of us (mostly them for sure, but I'm not good at handling high-stress situations), and I'm glad they're heading home tomorrow evening my time.
Anyway, flashing back to just over a month ago, I decided I was going to have a relaxing day in Milan. The weather was looking pretty bad in all of the day trip spots I was planning on visiting (not that it was much better in Milan), so might as well take it easy after some busy days.
Stop number 1: The Sforzesco Castle, a short tram ride from the hotel.
It's quite a large castle, with several museums inside -- definitely a good place to spend a blah weather day.
The back of the castle opens into Sempione Park, with a traveling carnival set up right outside -- quite a contrast to the centuries-old castle!
The modernist library in the park is pretty cool too.
The far end of the park returns to the historic with the Arco della Pace. The people in the first two pictures seemed to be filming an ad for some ebike company, riding back and forth on the raised platform thing. I quite like the wacky light fixtures in this part of the park! The last picture was an attempt to get a picture of a historic tram through the arch, but it didn't really work out -- I think I had my phone in wide-angle mode without realizing it.
Looking the other way, the castle is already disappearing into the fog.
Like so many older buildings, it's clear that the castle has been redone and added onto many times. There are parts that look practically brand new right next to others that are completely ruined.
I'm not a huge fan of art museums, but I like places like this that have a more general historic theme. There's plenty of impressive stuff here. Unfortunately, there was a big group of high school/college-aged kids heading through this part of the museum at pretty much the same pace I was and constantly doing things that were getting them in trouble with the guards (they were all speaking Italian so I didn't understand most of what was being said, but people were definitely not happy).
Some rooms of the museum had windows looking out over the carnival set up behind the castle -- what a contrast!
The exit of this first part of the museum takes you through this odd, and rather picturesque, courtyard. I had to come back to get these pictures because the first time I went through here, the obnoxious kids were taking up the entire walkway.
There was a section dedicated to furniture that I was surprised to find included some quite modern stuff -- I want that desk so bad, but I looked it up and it costs several thousand dollars more than my mom's surgery and hospital stay in Italy, or approximately 100 times what I paid for my Ikea desk in 2017. So that's not going to happen.
I'm not normally a fan of historic furniture, but I was struck by how modern this 300-year-old table looks!
Also impressive: The entire ceiling of a room from some other building, transplanted into a room in the castle.
I was disappointed to find that the walk on the castle walls was closed on the day I was here, but the route through the museum dumps you out onto the walls in one spot, which was nice.
There's a whole gallery of musical instruments, which I'm not super interested in, except for the exhibit showing the early electronic music setup that the RAI (Italy's government-run TV channel) built in the 50s.
I did quite like the temporary glass art exhibit, but it was a little awkward because I was the only visitor there, with a guard watching my every move.
Leaving this part of the museum takes you through this very strange tunnel-like hallway that must be buried within the castle walls.
The third part of the museum is a basement archeological museum, most of which was sadly closed when I was here. The part that was open has some very interesting retro displays!
The final section is a small exhibit housing Michelangelo's unfinished Rondanini Pieta. It wasn't clear if this was included in the same ticket as the rest of the museum, but it was (clearly I wasn't the only confused person, since I overheard a couple complaining that they had paid 5 euros just for this one little room -- nope, there's a whole ton more that you can see with that one ticket).
And of course there's a McDonald's right down the street from the castle. McDonald's is actually a lot less common in Italy than it was 15-20 years ago -- KFC seems to be the American fast food chain of choice these days in Italy, strangely enough.
The Duomo is just a few blocks from the castle, so I decided to head back over to see how busy it was. Originally I wanted to come back on a nicer day to go up to the roof, but there was hardly anyone here (I didn't have to wait in line to buy a ticket or to get to the stairs, even though they were clearly set up for massive lines in both places, so I decided that maybe a blah weather day was actually a good time to head up there.
And yes, I did take the stairs instead of the elevator. It saves a few euros and it really isn't all that many stairs (probably the equivalent of 3 or 4 floors of a normal building).
The clouds take away some of the distant views, but I'm most interested in the architecture of the cathedral itself. You also get a cool view down on the glass roof of the Galleria.
I'm fine with going up stairs, but going down is a bit scary -- and this was before two people in my family ended up in the hospital with broken bones from falls within a week!
All the construction is a little annoying, but the restored parts do look really nice!
I didn't pay the extra money to go into the cathedral (the last time I was in Milan it was free... you have to pay for everything in Italy these days), but the exit from the roof still takes you through a little divided-off corridor in the back, so here's a glimpse of the interior. I always love this Gothic style.
OK, that's enough historic stuff -- how about some funky modern architecture? The M3 line, built in the 80s, has a very distinct style to it with some of the wackiest designs I've ever seen in underground stations, and the brand-new, heavily-illuminated, faregates only add to the vibe.Time for a few more trams, of course!
Ever since I realized the canals of Milan exist, I've been intrigued by them -- mostly just because you don't really think of Milan as being a city with canals. This is the Grand Canal, which isn't particularly grand -- these are clearly canals built for industrial use, and while the canals themselves are no longer really used for that, the land around them certainly is.
I got off the tram where I did so I could check out this interesting bridge. The upper level is for pedestrians, while the lower level, which was once movable (it's now permanently in the up position), holds an abandoned train track. I'm guessing the line that used the bridge was removed when the building on the south side was built, and since it looks like that building (now mostly abandoned) is from the 60s or 70s, it has been a very long time since this bridge was in use. It's too bad no one ever redirected the stairs to connect to the railroad bridge, rather than forcing everyone to climb all the way to the top.
Alright, time for a bit of retail content, the stuff you all are actually here for. A few blocks from the hotel is Piazza Gae Aulenti, a modern development with a ring of office towers encircling a plaza that also serves as an outdoor mall of sorts. Going back to the skyline picture from the Duomo, the building with a tall spire sticking out of it is part of this complex.
Downstairs from the main plaza is an indoor section of the mall, home to a food court and a large Esselunga grocery store. I love how 80s the Esselunga interior looks, despite this being a fairly new (mid-2010s) store in an ultra-modern building.
And just down the street is Eataly, where I decided to have dinner that night. That turned out to be a bad choice -- the pizza I had was really expensive and not particularly special. My parents went to Eataly in Rome on some recent trip, and thought the same thing. It's too bad -- the Eataly concept of restaurants built into a grocery store is a cool idea, but it seems like they've gone downhill (on both the restaurant and grocery sides of the business) since I first tried them out in the early 2010s.
This location isn't particularly special on the inside either. The multi-story design with escalators linking the floors is neat, but it's nowhere near as cool as the former train station in Rome. It is still neat to eat dinner in a grocery store, but I don't think I'll be bothering with Eataly in the future.
Anyway, that's it for another Italian day! Hopefully things will calm down enough this week that I'll be able to get these out on a somewhat more regular basis.
Yikes, hope your mom is okay!
ReplyDeleteThey finally made it back home today, so I think things should be good for now, but it's been a scary week.
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