Keown Family-Life in Belgium: Beautiful Milan with Beautiful Gals

Milan Cathedral at night.....very beautiful

Great dinner the first night with yummy limoncello!

And for dessert...a table full of candy! It's a definite first for me. After dinner they put many jars of different candies out for us to enjoy, I just stuck with the limoncello :)

We arrived Friday evening to Milan and on Saturday had scheduled a tour with a local guide. We started with the Milan Cathedral (Duomo). We got to visit the inside and even the very top.

Statue of St. Bartholomew holding his own skin.

There are a few theories on how Bartholomew died, the one most depicted in works of art is that he was skinned alive. This sculpture in the Duomo was pretty gruesome once you really looked at it. My pics aren't that great but you can kind of see the muscle and bone definition, and also the skin hanging over his back.

The red light pictured here is supposed to be where one of the nails that was used to crucify Jesus remains. It is way at the top of the church (for security reasons obviously) and they bring it down once a year when celebrating the Rite of the Nivola.

Climbing to the top!

We made it!
Claire, Brandi, Shirley, me, and Wendy

Piazza del Duomo

Beautiful gallery with great shopping!
Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery

We had a great walk from the Duomo Plaza to the Sforza Castle...

Sforza Castle....Can't really write much about this place. Quite honestly, I was ready to go see the Last Supper and then do some shopping!!!

The girls with our guide Sara, she was great!

We saw this "art" on our walk as well. Suppose to be a needle and thread, representing the Milan fashion.

Finally on our way to The Last Supper.....

Milano road sign....????

Arriving at Santa Maria where the Last Supper is held. So, being the historian that I am, I asked Sara if the painting always stays here. She looked at me and said, "Yes, it's painted on the wall..." DUH!!!

Gotta love European doors!

So, this is a picture of my magnet that I bought in the gift store. There is absolutely no photography allowed inside the convent. Seeing the Last Supper was definitely one of the things I will remember most about living in Europe. I did expect some huge painting with a beautiful frame or something, but it's just a modest painting on the wall. It's not small like the Mona Lisa, but I guess I just expected more of a show. We had to have tickets, which thankfully Sara got for us because it can take months to be able to get them, and we went into a few different rooms before we could enter. We had 15 minutes to stare at the painting and then we were ushered out. It was amazing to see and to get to think about what it really meant.

Before we went in to see the Last Supper, we were outside waiting for our time and all of a sudden there was a very loud crash! Just a few feet from us was a car/motorcycle collision. It was quite dramatic. We just turned and saw the motorcycle go down. He popped back up to yell at the driver of the car and then fell back down. In pics above, the silver car was in the accident and below are chalk circles that marked the spot. It was pretty scary!