May 10 - Milan

Today, Pat and I walked to the Metro stop and took the subway into central Milan to the Piazza Duomo, about a half hour trip.  Spent the rest of the morning doing an audio tour of the Duomo which for those not familiar with it is Milan's Cathedral.  The site of the Duomo has been the location of the Milan Cathedral since 335 when St. Ambrose arrived in Milan.  The current Cathedral (the Duomo) was begun in 1386 but wasn't officially finished until 1965 and even now there are some blocks of stone waiting to be carved into statues.

The Duomo is built in the very ornate Gothic style as can be seen in this photo of the front of the church.

There is a lot of detail in the facade, here is an example two of the many statues and the fine detail in the construction.

It is the largest church in Italy.  St. Peter's is bigger but that is in Vatican City which is not part of Italy.  This photo down the center knave gives an idea of its size.

There are 52 columns holding up the roof with large capitals at the top.  Each capital is eight sided with each side holding a statue that is six feet high.  If you look at the far end of the church over the altar you will see a small red light.  Behind the light is a cross.  Here is a close up of that light and the cross.

In the center of this cross is a crystal container that is supposed to hold a nail from the true cross.  It was brought back from Jerusalem by St. Helen who was the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine and it was given to St. Ambrose by another Roman emperor.  In the main apse behind the altar are three large stained glass windows.  Here is a photo of one of them followed by a close up of some of the small panes that make up the window,

Also in this area of the church is a very famous statue of St. Bartolomeo.  Tradition holds that St. Bartolomeo was martyred by having his skin removed while he was still alive.  This statue shows St. Bartolomeo wearing his skin draped over his shoulders like a stole.  You can see a lot of detail in his musculature.

Two last Duomo photos, the first shows the top of the center stain glass window behind the altar.  This is called the rose section and shows the sun in it's center which is supposed to represent the risen Christ conquering the forces of darkness.

The other window is over the main entrance and shows the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom this church is dedicated.

In addition to the few stained glass windows I've shown you there were literally dozens of others lining the church.

After touring the Duomo we had lunch at a small cafe just to the side of the Piazza Duomo.  Here is  photo of Pat with the Duomo in the background.

We then walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  This is a 19th century version of an indoor shopping mall.  It was built between 1865 and 1877 and houses a lot of high end stores like Prada.  There used to be a McDonald's right in the center but in 2012 the city refused to renew their lease and their location now houses a second Prada store.  Here is a photo down the length of the Galleria.

Our last stop today was at the Teatro alla Scala.  We toured the museum and even got a chance to go into one of the box seats of the theater and see the interior.  Now we can say we've been in a box seat at La Scala.

One of the neat things we saw in the museum was a model of the opera house showing both the exterior and the interior all made out of Legos.  Here are photos of the exterior and interior.

It took about 30,000 Lego bricks to build this model.

After this we took the subway back to our hotel and this evening met up with the rest of our tour group for a welcome dinner.  Tomorrow our tour starts in earnest.