I just wrote 12 pages in my diary today so forgive me if this is brief. I don't want to bore you all!! Too much information was given to me today!!!
First of all, I don't ever need to go to the opera EVER again. Dear god why!!!!? We paid 13 euros and had seats so high up you couldn't see any of the stage ( don't really know what we expected for that price!) and because it's all in Italian too I had barely any idea what was happening. There was a screen on the back of the row in front with English translations but it was still pretty boring. We left at interval, but it least it was a unique experience!
Ok so back to today, long story short we had a bus and walking tour today. The first half of It pretty much did what we did yesterday, but it's the only way to see Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and it's sold out for four days because it is that popular! It was interesting hearing facts about Milan and the attractions though. We went through the opera house museum, the galleria, duomo and castle outskirts. A Japanese man on our tour had his wallet stolen at the castle. I've no idea why he had his wallet in his front pocket here, there are dodgy people everywhere....oh well!
Then we went to the church of Santa Maria Della Grazie where "The Last Supper" is. Wow. For the third time in 11 days I stared at a piece of artwork and could have sat there for a year and not gotten bored. It was amazing. We've seen a few representations of the last supper in Florence, but da Vinci is the only one to portray it as the moment before judas is found to be the traitor. I'm about the least religious person ever so I'll give you a quick run down of the back story in case you aren't religious either. Basically Jesus is having a meal with the 12 apostles, and there was a prophecy stating that he who grabbed bread and ate it first was the one who was going to betray Jesus (I'm not 100% sure what exactly this betrayal was, if anyone knows and could message me it'd be much appreciated, I was too embarrassed to ask in front of all the religiously educated people on the tour...!). Anyway, judas is shown as grabbing bread and he is the traitor. All the other apostles look outraged and shocked at Jesus' statement. Leonardo painted straight on the dry wall and didn't use the fresco technique so the work is unfortunately quite damaged. As a result only 30 people are allowed in at once. It's also like the butterfly house at the zoo, no 2 doors in successive rooms can be open at once in order to keep the temperature constant. But it was just one of those paintings that has so much emotion and action in it that you could stare at it for hours. You're only allowed a 15 minute window though!!!
So we got back on the bus and then mum and I had lunch at the same cafe as yesterday. Had our last pizza as we are off to Switzerland tomorrow! The man on the register - like yesterday - was quite cold. But once I got talking to the guy on the food counter and told him we were Australian and he told the register man, his attitude completely changed! He smiled and was so polite to me! Then he said 'I thought you were American!'. Found it weird/slightly funny that he automatically disliked me because he thought that...apparently everyone here thinks really highly of Aussies which I found last time too!!
Next we went to a special Gelateria that only has chocolate flavours. I had milk chocolate and nougat, mum had chocolate orange and mocha. Yummmmmm!!
Then we went to the national museum of science and technology Leonardo da Vinci. It was so interesting!!! There were kids with their parents everywhere, it was very busy. We saw models of inventions Leonardo da Vinci had drawn up, a musical instrument collection, a pharmaceutical collection as well as many trains, planes and boats. What was the best part though was the way the museum was set out. Everything was set up as it would have been in working order. So for instance in the music section it was set up like a violin maker's workshop, the planes were in a fake hangar etc. etc. It was a really interesting museum!
Our final stop for the day was our last Italian church (I think we've seen half the churches in this country...!) Sant'Ambrosio Church. Then we caught the metro back to our hotel, going out for tea soon.
We've spent 19 nights in Italy and we must be starting to look Italian! Every day recently we have at least one person come up to us asking for help in Italian. A few times I've vaguely understood what they've said and pointed them in the right direction, but all the other times I've had to say 'Inglese!!' haha.
We didn't sleep very well last night because of a very loud Russian couple next door. Mum got the nice guy on reception to call them to ask them to be quiet but they didn't shut up til 1am, then woke us getting up at 6.30. Grrrr!
Am really excited for Switzerland tomorrow! I get to use my alright German skills again for the next 8 days. Will be great to be able to read signs again and speak a little bit of the language to be polite. I'm not that great at it but much much better than Italian!
Love to all,
Claire
Xoxox
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