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!