Milan is the second largest city in Italy and is filled with art and fashion. The hotel in which Chris and I stayed was next to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is a beautiful four story shopping mall with designer stores, such as Louis Vuitton and Prada. We walked by a filming in progress during the morning of our second day in Milan.
View other posts in this series:
- Secret Trip Preview
- Destination #1 – Clues
- Destination #2 – Clues
- Destination #3 – Clues
- Transit – Florence, Italy to Milan, Italy
- Activities in Milan, Italy (this post)
- Restaurant VUN
- Park Hyatt Milan
- Destination #4 – Clues
- Destination #5 – Clues
- Destination #6 – Clues
- Destination #7 – Clues
- Destination #8 / 9 – Clues
- Destination #10 – Clues
- Asiana A380 First Class
Because we were unable to pre-purchase tickets to view The Last Supper and since Milan a relatively small city, Chris planned a walking tour that included admission to see Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. On our way to the tour, we recovered from the scorching heat by taking shelter in Venchi for a strawberry and lemon gelato cone.
The tour started at Santa Maria delle Grazie, a Church and Dominican monastery. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper was located on a dining room wall of this building. We learned that Leonardo da Vinci refused to follow the traditional method of fresco painting on wet plaster, and as a result, The Last Supper has significant damage over the years.
The tour continued to San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore. The exterior of the building was plain, but inside walls contained perfectly preserved fresco paintings. Unlike Leonardo da Vinci, these painters used the appropriate fresco technique. Plaster was applied in small sections, and each day the artist would paint only on the wet plaster. Any sections completed on previous days cannot be edited as the plaster would be dry.
We walked through Castello Sforzesco before arriving at the Milan Stock Exchange. Maurizio Cattelan Middle Finger Sculpture is without a doubt a controversial piece of art, but upon closer observation, the vein detail on the back of the hand has stunning resemblance to that of David di Michelangelo located in Florence, Italy.
The walking tour concluded at Duomo di Milano, right by our hotel. The cathedral was built using Candoglia marble, which erodes into black dusts from environmental elements. As a result, the cathedral is constantly undergoing reconstruction with replacement marble. The repaired locations are easily identified as these are stark white in contrast to the darker damaged marble. The tour included tickets to the lift that provided access to the rooftop of the gothic cathedral. From the rooftop, we were able to see detailed elements of the elaborate building.
After the walking tour, Chris and I quickly freshened up back at our hotel before making our way to Expo Milano 2015, in which various countries display their take on feeding the planet and energy for life. We were required to purchase a special ticket (return trip 5 Euros per person) for the Metro to Rho Fiera station, since this was outside the standard urban area. We were not able to view many exhibits as there were huge crowds and massive lines for each pavilion, but we did wait in line for delicious pastas from the Eataly food area.
We finished off the night with ALLAVITA!, a Cirque du Soleil show created especially for the Universal Exposition in Milan. Chris had pre-purchased tickets for the blue section of the Open-Air Theater. As I am more accustomed to the smaller theater style of Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, this Open-Air Theater has a large audience and some seats had obscured views. We found an elevated seat off to the side, and had pretty decent views of the hour-long show.
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