Visiting and touring Milan, Italy
As you know, I went on a tour of Europe, and the first stop on the list was Paris in France, and the second was Zurich in Switzerland. After a quick stop at Duesseldorf, my next stop on the Europe tour was Milan in Italy. Third stop on the Europe tour: MILAN!
I had actually several negative experiences there and several positive experiences in Milan, but I will focus on the more positive parts of the trip rather than dwelling on the not so savoury side of Milan.
There are many beautiful churches in Milan, and of course, one of the first places that I just had to visit was the church that had the Last Supper. That was the Santa Maria delle Grazie which had the mural of the Last Supper. The bad news for me was that since my friends and I arrived late, we were unable to get tickets to go in to see that famous mural of the Last Supper by the great Leonardo da Vinci. Nonetheless, we visited the church and we also took lots of beautiful pictures of the church anyways. It was great to visit and to travel to see the Church that hosted the Last Supper inside its walls, but pity I didn't get to see it. My friend joked: Wikipedia, man, Wikipedia. Haha! We came all the way to Milan in Italy to end up going back to look at Leonardo da Vinci's mural on the Internet. What a comical world :)
The three churches we visited were, apart from the Santa Marie delle Grazie, the Duomo and the Basilica of St Ambrogio. We also went to Milan's fashion central, the very expensive Quadrilatero della moda, where the rich were and the poor were missing.
The Duomo: we visited the gigantic church right in the middle of town and there were literally thousands of people lining up to go into the Duomo. A word of advice: don't ever let anyone cheat you of your money while you're there, and don't let them come near you to give you birdseed to feed the birds, and don't let them come near you to touch you or give you anything. That's speaking from my bad experience from touts, beggars and cheats there in Milan. I don't mean that the people of Milan are like that, only that those types of people marred tourists' expectations and opinions of the place. Nevertheless, the Duomo was incredibly beautiful and the people inside were very pious. I have many pictures of the inside of the Duomo in Milan and it is very beautiful indeed. I would say that it was grander and more majestic than Notre Dame, but that is only my personal opinion.
The Basilica of St Ambrogio was also very beautiful, but then, church fatigue kind of set in. The reason was that each church here in Milan is very beautiful, but in the land of Roman Catholics there are simply too many churches and then after a while I got a bit tired. Nonetheless, the churches were all very beautiful, with rich histories and architecture, here in Milan.
I also visited the rich man's district. All the streets here at the Quadrilatero were full of fashion boutiques and full of rich people shopping and buying things. It was rather interesting to see the ships and all the brands and labels, some familiar brands and yet others non familiar brands. It was all quite new to me and it was interesting to see Italians dressed up in their finest clothing and driving the biggest cars, quite unlike other parts of Milan. This place, the Quadrilatero, had a logic and life of its own and was quite unlike the rest of the place. It literally screamed conspicuous consumption and leisure and wealth. It was an eye-opening experience for me and very very unique. I don't mind coming back to Milan one day just to tour and visit the Quadrilatero again, and this time, I'll come back with lots of money... so that I can spend some money there and feel very rich and powerful indeed. Haha!
As usual, beautiful pictures and scenes from Milan, Italy to come here on my Tour and See the World! blog... stay tuned!
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