Saturday, March 12, 2011

Milan, Part 2: Milan Castle and Duomo Cathedral

I mentioned in the last post that our trip to Milan was a wonderful short get-away. I don't have a lot to share in words, but did want to share pictures from the trip.

A few points to begin: It's really easy to get to Milan from here. We are a two minute trip from the Lausanne train station, and then there's a fast, modern train that gets us to Lausanne in less than 3-1/2 hours. We really liked train travel with the kids. Most of the time they played with some new die cast toys they got, and we also read some of one of the How to Train Your Dragon books.

Calvin plays with a new die-cast toy. He loves the boat.

My beautiful and out of focus wife.

Family having fun in the train.

Train shed at National Museum of Science and Technology. I had forgotten
how massive big steam engines are. It's hard to get your head around what
huge pieces of equipment these were. Keep in mind Elliot is over 4' tall.

We visited the Milan Castle on Thursday afternoon. Elliot thought the castle was really cool because, as he put it, "I like violent things." There was also a museum in the castle, and we were very impressed that Elliot was so interested in the old furniture and art that was housed in the museum. It was so fun to watch him walking around the museum actually being interested in the paintings and commenting on what he thought about them. Who would expect our six-year-old to express an interest in art?*

Inside the castle. Can you tell Calvin is tired?

Elliot is interested in this one. This was Jesus' birth, and
 Elliot told us that he wasn't born yet so he must have still
been up in heaven, so he was one of those angels at the top.
We visited the Duomo Cathedral on Friday. We hadn't realized before planning our trip what an amazing cathedral this is. Third largest church in the world, largest gothic cathedral, and it's made of beautiful marble. It's also recently been cleaned and reworked on the outside, and they've done a beautiful job. I haven't seen a lot of cathedrals, but it was easily the best I've seen. Laura was also extremely impressed. After exploring the outside, we bought tickets to climb up to the roof. Both Elliot and Calvin walked up the stairs by themselves. We were very impressed!

Right at the top of the metro. This is the one metro stop
that drops you off right where you want to be.
Sitting on the roof of one of the aisles. We don't have any
pictures inside. We seem to have been the only tourists
following the "no photos inside" rule.

I think on the roof above a transept. You can see the long nave running
along behind us to the left.
Not sure why, but I like this photo of Elliot and me.
Calvin having fun on the roof.
Now we've climbed further up and we're on top of the nave, looking out at
the view of Milan, or....
...looking down here over the roof of the aisle, between the flying buttresses
toward the square on the south side of the church. (The big square the
the cathedral faces is to the west.)
The roof of the nave. Nearly as high as you can go if the tower isn't open, as
it wasn't on this day. We were blessed with our one clear, sunny, warm
day on this day. We lucked out!
Taking a break on the top of the cathedral. Looks like Calvin could use it.
(He had just walked up a few hundred steps!)
After finishing the cathedral, we found a restaurant to have a late lunch at the top of a department store across the street. It was a beautiful day to eat outside, and we were sitting across the street and even with the aisle roof of the cathedral. Not a bad lunch....

Lunch across the street from the cathedral. The food was good, too. What
else could you ask for?
Elliot and Laura have taken off their coats. This is on March 4th. I wonder
what the weather is like in Minnesota?
This is what passes for a "shopping mall" in downtown
Milan. Not quite the Mall of America....
As we were walking past the cathedral again, Elliot noticed a white statue on the street. Then, it moved!


Elliot joins the statue on its platform.
Well, you need to make a living somehow....
So, that's Milan. There are a few other stories and adventures to tell, but maybe not here. Next time we're going shopping in Milan, though, I hope we do it without kids. And a lot of money. Not sure where that's coming from.

Milan. Second largest city in Italy. Highly recommended!


* About a month into our stay here, something happened that made Laura and I decide we really appreciated Haut Lac, the kids' school. She asked Elliot what the best part of his day was. He said, "I learned about the art of Paul Klee. He speaks German just like you, mommy."** Laura went to the computer to find some Paul Klee images. She went to Google Images and Elliot got all excited. "Yeah, this is what we saw!" And he took control of the mouse and clicked here, clicked there, and showed Laura various aspects of Paul Klee's art. This is the same kid who has the fine motor skill delay and couldn't properly grip his pencil four months ago. They're obviously doing something right at Haut Lac!

** She also expected his answer to be something like, "Recess," or, "Making a picture of a monster in art." Double points for Haut Lac!

Sunday, March 6, 2011

...you might be in Italy.

We just returned from a delightful trip to Milan. It was a really fun little trip and extremely easy to get to (nice, new, comfortable, clean (except for the WC's) modern, fast train direct from Lausanne in less than 3-1/2 hours). I think this trip will spawn a few posts, but to start with, we were struck by the very diametrically opposed cultures of Switzerland and Italy. Switzerland is efficient and the people are friendly, but not warm (it's hard to explain, but I may try sometime). Italy is full of warm, effusive, emotional people, with not a lot of regard for efficiency (although our trains did run on time....).

So, with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy and his redneck jokes (you remember: If you've ever been involved in a custody fight over a hunting dog...you might be a redneck. If you think "loading the dishwasher" means getting your wife drunk...you might be a redneck. Etc.), here are our initial thoughts of what it's like to be in Italy.

1. If the first thing your waiter does before greeting you or bringing a menu is creep up behind your child, reach around the chair and tickle him on the ears...you might be in Italy!

2. If every room is maintained at a minimum temperature of 85 degrees....you might be in Italy!

3. If every street is lined with barricades to keep people from parking their cars on the sidewalk...you might be in Italy!

The barricades in the neighborhood near our hotel

They don't stop the motorcycles....


4. If when your child knocks over a wine glass, breaking it into pieces and drenching the table in wine, three waiters materialize out of nowhere to strip the table down to bare wood and build it up again, all the while apologizing themselves and repeating "no problem, no problem, this can easily happen, please relax, don't do anything"...you might be in Italy!

5. If all of the waiters and shopkeepers want to hear your life story, know where you're from, what you're doing in Italy, all the while oblivious to the new tables/line of customers filling up behind them...you might be in Italy!

6. If your metro stop brings you up out of the ground one block from Milan Castle (or the National Museum of Science and Technology or any other landmark aside from the Duomo) without even one single sign, arrow, diagram, map or wayfinding solution to tell you which way to go to get to the extremely large and important tourist site one block away...you might be in Italy!

Is it too hard to put up one sign to direct you here from
the metro stop one block away?


7. If the first train you enter in the metro is occupied by a band of scruffy characters with a strange set of instruments playing a particularly...artful? interestingly tuned?... representation of what you can just make out was once Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for stray change...you might be in Italy!

Milanese "musicians" on the Metro.


8. When the shoe saleswoman keeps pinching your son's cheeks and telling him she want's to eat him up (yes, it happened again!)...you might be in Italy!

9. When you're woken up at four o'clock in the morning by a drunken man in the room below you with his window open belting out opera at the top of his lungs, and he's quite good...you might be in Italy!

And, my personal favorite,

10. If the interactive exhibits at the National Museum of Science and Technology don't interact...you might be in Italy!

The National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo DiVinci was a real mystery. So much promise and potential unrealized. It was a fun visit, and occupied the kids for a half day, but it could have been so much more! 

  • As mentioned above, the interactive exhibit on telecommunications had long since given up the ghost (interesting because it was supposed to demonstrate the better reliability of new modes of communication, but when your answer to the questions posed there was that the call didn't go through, just like the earlier more complicated forms.... hmm). But, there were lots of other things, too. 
  • For some reason, they have a third of the exhibits roped off and closed. Why? 
  • A huge exhibit building filled with old trains and train cars. But, you can't go in the train cars, and there aren't platforms to allow you to see inside the windows! So, you can see what the outside of the trains look like, but not the inside. 
  • Ditto the closed submarine. (Granted, we weren't there during tourist season.) 
  • Models of Leonardo DaVinci diagrams that are promoted loudly in advertising and tour books, but they don't mention they're miniature models. 
  • A fresco that's billed as a reproduction of Leonardo's Last Supper which is in Milan but nearly impossible to get tickets to, but it's a fresco by another artist inspired by Leonardo's masterpiece, with the same size and format, but completely different artistic style and interpretation of characters. 
  • Beautiful, clean exhibits, but missing something big. And a building that's nearly impossible to navigate. Forget about trying to find an exhibit, just try to cover the whole building.


I don't want to give the wrong impression. We had fun and it was a good stop for the kids. But, diamond in the rough, man, diamond in the rough!

NEXT ENTRY: Inside Milan Castle and the famous Milan Duomo!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Ski Week

This week all of Switzerland has school off. We are told this is NOT a winter or spring break. It is Ski Week.

So, we're going to Milan.



Train leaves in an hour and a half, so I don't have time for more. But, I hope to post each day during our mini-holiday.

Au revoir!