Woke up today and left our hotel in Bergamo. Tried to call to make an appointment to see the last Supper, but no go. Oh well, I'm sure I'll see plenty of cool things this trip, will just have to miss out on one.
We decided to head right into Milan this morning and see what we could. We park in an underground car park with floors that could be used for ice skating and went for a walk. The Duomo is amazing. It is literally covered in spires and statues. There's so many statues you can't look at them all. Amazing stuff. The best is climbing to the roof. You can go up and walk among the spires (kind of) and get a great view of the city. It may be 2 Euro extra to get the lift rather than climb the stairs...but I think I'd pay the extra next time. The stairs were a bit of an effort, and you get the roof and need a break. Still worth it though. We then went down and went into the Duomo itself. At the door there's guards who check the bags and wave you with a little wand. There's also signs saying no photos. Getting inside we noticed a bunch of people taking photos, so I asked a guy working there who said it was fine just no flash. I took a bunch of photos of the huge columns, the stained glass and the statues, then went down stairs to the grave and got a photo there. All along the way people working there saw me taking photos and said nothing. As I came back up a guy came up and tole me no photos. Mixed messages much? Right after this a saw the coolest statue in the place (a skinny dude) but the guy who said no photos was still wandering around.
After wandering around the Duomo, we then went just across the road to Maccas. Hah!
After lunch we wandered through the Vittoria Emanuele II Gallery (shopping arcade, pretty old, and with another Maccas) to La Scalla, the opera theatre. Pretty plain on the outside, but we heard it was fancy on the inside. We wouldn't know. It's closed for the whole of August and there's no windows. Fun. Out the front of it there was a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci, which was pretty sweet.
We were going to leave Milan, but decided to head to the Castello Sforzesco. It's a big red brick castle which had it's defences designed by Da Vinci...oooooo! Pretty cool place, and there was a cat and a kitten amongst a more ruined section. The kitten kept trying to sneak up on pigeons, without much luck. We left there and, after stopping for petrol, I began the drive to Turin. Got onto the Autostrada, and was going at 130 for a bit, pretty comfortable driving on the wrong side now. After a while we stopped at a services, and we swapped. I was getting sick of not being able to take photos out the window, especially since we'd just gone past some nice areas with snow topped mountains in the background. While at the services, I went for a wander and found a way through to some rice paddies. Nice view of the fields and the mountains. Got some nice photos. There were also a bunch of small frogs here that jumped into the drainage waterway whenever I walked near. They're were sometimes a dozen or so jumping in all at once. Also, some cool looking dragonflies.
We continued on to Turin. After having some problems with the GPS, we made it. Stopped at a little hotel outside the city centre and unpacked the car. There's free wi-fi here too so thats handy. We soon left the hotel to head to the centre. Caught the number 13 bus in, had no idea where to get tickets so just sat down. The main area in the town is a large piazza (Piazza Castello). Seemed like the place for all the cool kids to hang out...I promptly left.
At the piazza there was a war memorial, a few mueseums which were ok to look at, but we went behind the Royal Palace to find a Duomo, and some Roman archaeological ruins. They were pretty cool. Even better was when we wandered around and found the National Film Mueseum. Didn't go in, but it's in an old (never used) synagogue (Mole Antonelliana) with a massive spire. We left there and started heading to the River Po, but got hungry so went and has some Pizzas for dinner, with another massive Coke. Had icecream too, before jumping back on the "free" bus and back to the hotel for the night.
Signing off...
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