Milan's Duomo

A duomo is generically a cathedral church, and so far as I can tell every city of any size in Italy has one.  The duomo of Milan is actually a cathedral to Saint Mary Nascent.  Its construction was started in 1386 and as most projects of any scale it is still under construction and renovation. 

Projects of this size use a flying buttress design that transfers the loading of the main hall into a series of supporting exterior structures to hold the center section.  In this case the buttresses are interior to the main area.  Since its start there have been 73 architects and engineers in charge of the construction and reconstruction.  That this building is still standing is a tribute to those who have added to or fiddled with its structure.

The interior is dark and solemn.  Archbishops are buried in it and it serves as the headquarters for the current archbishop of Milan.  As you would expect there are tributes to various saints and martyrs in corners of the church.  Gargoyles and reliefs of biblical events adorn the exterior.  One feature that caught my attention is the entrance doors.  These bronze doors have cast into them scenes from the construction of the church. A nice tribute to the workmen who labored on the edifice.

Legend has it that a religious relic, one of the nails that held Jesus to the cross, is held in this church.  This relic hangs from wires in a case high over the altar.  This adds significance to the cathedral. 

Another rather unusual feature is the statue of St Bartholomew.   Bartholomew is the disciple who was skinned by the romans for his belief. Flaying was an awful punishment since It was done while the person was alive.  The intriguing part of this is the artist had to beg for indulgence from the Pope in order to sculpt the statue since it was against the church doctrine to violate the human body after death and displaying the muscles and such of the saint would have opposed this doctrine.

Stained glass and painted windows, dark furniture, an immense pipe organ add to the religious aura of this magnificent building. 

exterior of building.

view of interior facing the front.

a protecting Gargoyle

Front view of Cathedral to Maria Nascent 

20-30' stained glass window along sides of main area.

One of the many painted glass windows

Dual pipe organs

st Bartholomew statue

one of the main entrance doors

door detail showing steps of construction of the duomo
bottom three panels of door above.

As a side note; money is tight everywhere and so there is a 2 euro charge to take pictures inside the building.  Yes, there are enforcers who graciously point this out to anyone with a camera. (Personal experience and worth the money.)

The gods prefer Italy.

Flying overnight offers the opportunity to attempt sleeping in a variety of uncomfortable positions at 35000 feet.  However, on the bright side there is nothing to see out of the windows and so nothing is missed.

Most of our flight path is over cloud cover and so the earth below is obscured.  That is until we get to the border of the French Alps and Italy.  At this juncture is it clear that the gods prefer Italy; no clouds, bright sun, green fields and forests all come into view.  The alps are pretty but Italy is enticing and welcoming.

evidence that the gods prefer Italy

The Heathrow airport is huge and the terminal you arrive in is not the one you leave from (probably). This means leaving a secure area and going through security check again.  Nice people with a serious job to do.  ANY sense of humor must have been surgically removed prior to their employment. 

Approaching Milan, Italy

Our flight from London to Milan is not very full.  There are perhaps only 30 people on a plane that carries three time that.  This is very important during passport check.  With only a couple of exceptions, not including ourselves, passport check is quick and officious—handover passport, get the stare down from the customs officer, passport stamped and handed back, move on—My “good day” salutation is not returned and no smile offered. 

There are a couple of people who command the attention of the officers and they receive extended scrutiny from them.  We patiently wait our turn and enjoy the lack of attention. 

  We are through and on to customs bag check.  Bag check is nonexistent.  Tables are set up, uniformed officers are standing by, and no one, absolutely no one is asked for any information about the contents of their bags.  A few more steps and we are through the sliding doors and onto Italian soil. 

Departure -- 2 degrees of awesome

At 9:00am today Elvis left the building headed for a great adventure.

On the train trip to Washington dc I am struck with a   couple of awesomenesses (is that a real word?).  First the fact that when spring finally decides to show itself, it does it with a vengeance.  Areas that were previously covered with snow and barren of any life signs are now covered with grasses, crops working their way into the sun and new born calves bound closely their mother cows.  This is a great beginning for our trip.

The second awesome is that the reality of this trip is settling in.  I have realized that we will traveling in hours what would have taken days or weeks not too long ago.  I have technology that permits instant communications with anyone anywhere.  

My first airplane trip was about 45 years ago.  It was on a propeller driven aircraft whose tail was lower than the rest of the plane (tail dragger).  There was no jet way, no security, just an agent taking tickets and motioning us to walk out on to the tarmac and up the stairs.  Today we checked in, removed various pieces of clothing, walked through an x-ray machine, boarded a subway train and waited in a well fitted traveler’s lounge that overlooked a replica of  United Technologies bicycle powered aircraft.   Things are different today.

In today’s New York Times there is an article on the decline of the middle class in America. It posits there is a decline in the wealth of the American middle class when compared to other countries.  From my perspective as a traveler this is not true at this airport.  The number of families with children traveling is great.  When our kids were young we never traveled by air; vacations were car trips because Having made several trips across the USA by car, that may be reversed today.

There are still a lot of business men, women too but not as many, filling the planes, but a growing group of young millenials are also traveling, either in pairs or alone.  Our international flight check in  had three families with children and  twice as many young, I can use that word since I have children who are older than any of these, travelers.  As I type this I can see a large group of teenagers being herded by a couple of harried looking adults toward their departure gate.  My granddaughters have taken group trips that in earlier eras would never have happened.  Things are different today and they are great.

T minus 10 days and counting -- trains and automobiles

Good morning, America, how are you
Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

City of New Orleans by Steve Goodman (1970)

(Admit it, you sang along didn’t  you?)

America has a nostalgic association with railroads but that is about all. From personal experience,  America could take lessons from Europe where public rail transportation is plentiful, regular, and reasonable. 

Universal advice from those who have traveled to Italy and France is “do not drive, take the train!” This OKAY with me since I really like to see where I travel and would rather pay attention to the passing scenery than the oncoming traffic.  I have taken train rides for vacation. Once traveled from Los Angeles to Portland on the Coast Starlight, a great trip along the California and Oregon coasts.  Delayed twice for freight trains that had priority and once for a broken switch or gate or something.   A scheduled 30 hour trip took about 40 as I recall.

Directed to the two main rail systems in Italy by a daughter who lives in Milan, Italy, I was able to arrange our travels not only through Italy but into Switzerland, France and England as well.  The websites for both have English versions that make the process easy.  Interesting that both Amtrak and Italian rain sites have the ability to display in four languages, English, French, German, and Spanish; both Italian sites also display in Italian, no surprise.  The booking process is just three online screens; identify the dates and where you want to leave and end, select the time you want to leave each, pay for the trip. The two major trains in Italy sometimes depart and arrive at different stations.  A city the size of Milan, Italy, about 1.4 million people,  has two main train stations; for comparison, Phoenix, Arizona, a city of about 1.4 million, does not even have a train station.  We have a way to go for parity in this area it seems.

One final note about the train web sites; if you decide to change your mind before completing the booking, the sites are not very forgiving.  Changing your mind or attempting to make any change is like drawing the “Advance to GO” card in Monopoly, you do get to start over again but without the $200, and any prior information, like names, etc., erased.   Calling to change a trip, required for out of country payments, put me in touch with a very courteous, but officious, customer service agent who quickly changed the information and sent me a confirming email. Impressive! Beginning this transaction I did get to practice my limited Italian; mi scusi Parli inglese? Io non parlo italiano.  To which the first agent responded in perfect english, “let me connect  you with our English speaking department.”  I am looking forward to meeting a proprietario panettiere to order rotolo dolce e caffè per favore.  I Wonder what I’ll get?

Our Italian train adventures include trips from Milan to Rome, Florence, and Venice.  Our travels will include trains into the Swiss Alps to Zurich and then a high-speed train from there to Paris.  One highlight will be our trip from Paris to London through the “Chunnel”  the tube tunnel running between France and England.  There was a brief discussion about the option of taking a ferry  across the English Channel, but the allure of the Eurostar won out.  I think we said it would take too much time—now that really sounds crazy after deciding to extend our original one week trip into an eight week “great adventure”!  I guess you can take the ’Type A’ person out but your can never get the ‘Type A’ out of them.   The white rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland strangely comes to mind, never mind I need to finish this.

One caution about booking, or buying, anything in a foreign country.  Check your credit card to see if a “foreign transaction” fee is charged.  This charge has nothing to do with the vagaries of currency exchange but is just a charge for doing business in a foreign country.  For one of my cards, the charge is 3%.  This applies regardless of whether the card is paid in full each month, or not.  I guess the extra computing effort to change from $US to Euros is expensive, reminds me of the “taxes and carrier imposed fees” at the airlines.  Not all credit cards charge this fee so check ahead and save some money for that extra glass of wine or scoop of gelato.

One other note on credit card use.  Immediately converting the  charge showing in Euros on your receipt may not be the exact amount you will get charged.  Charge card companies do not necessarily make the conversion exactly at the transaction and so the fluctuations in the “official” currency exchange rate can affect the amount paid.  Over the past five years the Dollar to Euro conversion has varied from a low around one dollar equaling about 0.68 Euros to a high where one dollar equaled about 0.83 Euros.  While the conversion rate has not been wildly changing a delay of one or two days can amount to +\- amount of 1 or 2%, there goes the gelato.  Oh yeah, credit card conversion is the least expensive.  Money exchanges are in the business of buying and selling currencies and so they charge a bit over the official rate to  make their profit.  

A moment of blogging truth.  Recall I mentioned that  we were warned not to drive?  Well, in our planning we have decided to take the time (Be still my anxious ‘type a’ friend)  to explore the south of France after visiting with our friend near Bordeaux and so we will  fly in the face of experienced advice. We have reserved a car for a week’s touring around the vineyards and small towns in France.  I called our insurance broker and learned that American insurance is not valid in Europe.  The insurance and coverage purchased through the rental company exceeds the cost of the rental.  I have convinced myself it will be worth the peace of mind and simplicity; I will not let it affect the amount, or quality, of food, gelato, and wine consumed.  Details will be provided.

Our plans are complete.  The great adventure awaits its birth on April 23 with our train trip to Dulles Airport.   Check back for updates as this unfolds.  Until then arrivederci and Ciao!

T Minus 13 and counting -- Housing

T minus 13 -- Housing

“Home is where I lay my head”  Metallica, 2009

“Home is where the heart is” American idiom

“Home is wherever I’m with you” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, 2009

The search for the elusive ‘home’ is never easy in song and even harder than when you are traveling.  Beds are not the same,  pillows are definitely not the same and the sounds are strange.  Nonetheless, the search for the comforts of home while away from home,  continues.

In planning for our  great adventure, we discovered a variety of options for housing while traveling.  Some we knew from first-hand experience and others from hearsay.  Some of the options we considered, some more briefly than others.

Camping – Showed its face but did not make it in the door.  Youthful exuberance permitted this to even make our list;  Experience and age removed it almost as quickly.

Hostels – An interesting choice that has some really exciting features along with some that are not so much.  Staying in a hostel involves the chance meeting of some interesting people but also sharing space.  The majority are like dormitories where you get a bed but share baths and common areas. Many are locked up during the day and may or may not have secure storage for luggage.  Of the several we examined online, many had age limits; you needed to be under 35. We do not qualify.  Shared bath...Really? Those were out also, as were those with bunk beds.  

Hotels – Since we have considerable experience with hotels, we recognize that they are not all equal and so we began to read the reviews.  Brand name hotels as well as boutique establishments were considered.  There is an old adage that if a person is dissatisfied they will tell 20 others while a satisfied customer will tell no one.  Hotel reviews by previous guests are like that and with the availability of on line communications, it may be more like 200 to 0.  I use zero for the good reviews because some negative reviews read as if they were written by Edward Hyde,  of Jekyll and Hyde fame,  while good ones appeared to be written by hotel staff and managers. 

Apartments - Short term furnished apartments are readily available in a wide range of prices. The cost seems dependent upon size, their modernity and their location and proximity to transportation; newer, larger and closer in to major cities, the higher the price.  An apartment offers a kitchen, often very small, in which breakfasts and those often needed late night snacks can be prepared.  Generally, apartments are for longer term, over 5 days, stays.  One cautionary note from a travel information site was to be sure that linens and towels were included.  We were well advised as several units did not include these as a part of the initial booking.  Generally, these could be obtained at extra cost.

A major assist to us in locating suitable apartments was found in at www.Housetrip.com.  This website has a wide variety of apartment listings for several cities.  The site includes photographs of both interior and exterior for the units. City maps are provided to give an idea of proximity to attractions and transportation.   From our experience, the operators are responsive to questions and act as a renter-focused intermediary with the apartment owner.   Following our booking a reservation, we received emails from apartment owners welcoming us and providing directions, physical addresses and best transportation methods to use, and telephone numbers for later contact.

As we planned our trip details, we opted for a combination of some hotels and some apartments.  For our longer term stays in Paris and Rome, we found one bedroom apartments close enough to city centers and transportation which were affordable.  For our shorter stays, 1-2-3 days,  in other locations we elected to use affordable hotels that appeared to have some standards of quality.

Air transportation and housing, check, check.  We are quickly moving toward  final plan details.