The Duomo, (literally, "dome"), is beautiful by night, as there are lights around it, to illuminate all the windows, and you can see just how much effort went into building it. It took five centuries to complete, and apparently it is still not finished: there are stone blocks inside still waiting to be carved.
Everyone had these huge white balloons, and after asking around, H&M were giving them out. But they were just plain white, no advertising. So P bought one off a man for five euro, but it popped halfway back to the hotel.
Friday, P bought some clothes from H&M, and I bought two tops from Pimkie. We visited the Pincacoteca di Brera. There was a room dedicated to the Marriage of the Virgin, by Raphael, explaining how it was painted, and how it was restored. It also focussed on different aspects of the painting, such as the perfect geometric lines of the steps in the background, and the detail of the clothes.
There was also a Caravaggio, who is one of P's favorite painters, the Supper at Emaus. After tripping down steps, we went to the Natural Science Museum, inside the Porta Venezia Gardens.
On Saturday, we went to the Castello Sforzesco, where there are four museums. All Milanese museums are sooo cheap. They're like 2 euro entry, and the Castello museums were 1.5 euro to get into all of them. That's like 25p a museum! Anyway. They had Egyptian art, Prehistoric art and history, a Michelangelo sculpture, the Rodanini Pieta, whose creation is quite interesting.. it was originally going to be something else, and if you look at it closely, you can see Michelangelo's attempts to try and change what he had already sculpted.
Then we went to an Archaelogical Museum, which was housed on the ruins of an old Roman villa. It was interesting, but I was really tired at this point. :(
Sunday we went to climb the Duomo, to get onto the roof. There's a sign when you go into the church.. you can't be dressed inappropriately. So I had to put my jumper on. There are boxes all over asking for donations, as apparently it costs 12 million euro to upkeep the church a year. There was a service going on at the same time - it'd be weird going to church and having tourists milling around watching you. It's truly beautiful inside... there are so many statues and painted windows.
There is also a small red bulb in one of the windows, which marks the place where one of the nails from Christ's Cruxificion is placed. Look at this photo - we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the church.
The roof was.. scary. I hate heights, and had trouble going up to the higher part of it. Especially as there was a spirally staircase :( So I had to sit down for, like, 10 minutes...
...whilst he took photos of the view, and of the statue at the top, the Virgin Mary.
We ate loads and walked lots. Malpensa Airport sells Ferrero Rocher Nutella.. and sadly I didn't get any. I should have :( P looked for a plug socket so he could write some more of his thesis while I read Pride and Prejudice, but ended up playing Warcraft...
I rushed from the airport to get to the train to Victoria, to get on the tube to get to Piccadilly, for A's birthday, at Benihana. Everyone looked really well dressed, and I felt scruffy in comparison, as I'd just come off a flight in jeans and a t shirt (which was new). It's quite cool: the chefs cook the food in front of you. J and M both caught a prawn in their mouths, thrown by the chef. A caught it the second time. M ate lots of wasabi: I have a video somewhere. The food was soo nice, and the cake at the end was massive, and even nicer :)
I want a cake for my birthday... except I don't, as it'd be embarrassing, with everyone looking. And my birthday's not for another month yet. And due to all the food I've eaten in Italy and at Benihana, I'm trying to eat less now. I've come back with extra weight :( So went swimming this morning, and will endeavour to do so for the next few weeks.
I hope people remember to come!
xo
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