It was raining hard this morning, which prompted us to stay at the Airbnb for the morning, but by midday the weather cleared and we set off to Milan Cathedral, referred to as the Duomo. We had an adventure because we braved the Milan Metro. The metro here is quite easy to navigate and is very clear to understand. There are just 4 lines, red, yellow, green, and purple, and the direction one wants to go is based on the first or last stop of that line. You buy tickets from machines near the platform entrances, stick the ticket through a machine that time stamps it and you use the ticket again to exit the subway. Tickets are good for 90 minutes. The cost is 2 Euros per ticket. We had no trouble at all navigating through all that. We were very proud of ourselves for being brave enough to take the subway.
The metro stop brought you up the stairs and right into the enormous plaza in front of the cathedral. And, as you might expect, the place was swarming with people. But seeing the cathedral for the first time kind of takes your breath away.
Its an amazing structure with tons of incredible sculptures all over the exterior. Before we went to the cathedral, we first visited Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the glitziest shopping mall I’ve ever seen. It’s on the left-hand side of the plaza. The Galleria is a 5-story mall covered in curved glass and lavishly decorated with patriotic mosaics and statues, legacy of the chaotic era of Italian unification, manifesting the country’s newly-acquired self-confidence. The Galleria was built between 1865 and 1877 and is named after the first king of unified Italy. The Galleria is comprised of 2 glass-vaulted covered passages crossing in an octagonal central piazza below a very high glass dome. The floor is adorned with marble mosaics depicting emblems of the main Italian cities. There is one mosaic containing a bull and locals believe that stepping on the bull’s image with the heel of the fight foot and spinning around can bring good luck. Of course, we both tried doing that, not an easy thing because with so much spinning over the years, there’s a substantial hole in the marble. The Galleria is filled with top name stores, Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, to name a few. It is glitz galore everywhere.
On the other side of the Galleria we found a statue of Leonardo diVinci in a little park. That happened to be across the street from the famous opera house La Scala.
We walked back over to the Duomo and walked around the building taking in the exterior. There are so many things to see. It reminded us of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, in terms of how much exterior art work was visible.
We had purchased advance tickets to skip the line, but today there wasn’t much of a line. I only bought entrance to the cathedral. There were also tickets to the rooftop, either for the walk up a bazillion stairs to the top, or lift tickets to the top. I thought it was going to be raining so I didn’t buy those. However, as we walked around the cathedral we saw the lift entrance. We looked at each other, and then we were on the way to the ticket office to purchase tickets for the rooftop terrace via lift.
Before the excursion to the top, we walked around the inside of the cathedral with our mouths hanging open. It was awesome! Construction began in 1386, and like most mammoth churches started in the 13th and 14th centuries, this one took 6 centuries to complete. This cathedral is the largest in Italy (can’t count St. Peter’s at the Vatican because that is a sovereign state), the second largest in Europe, and the third largest in the world. Although Napoleon did a lot of plundering across Europe, one of the better things he did was to get the facade of the cathedral completed in the early 1800s just before he was crowned King of Italy. There is a large statue of Napoleon in the plaza in front of the church to honor his involvement in getting the cathedral construction moving along. It was finally finished in 1965.
The columns in the church are massive, each with very ornate sculptures adorning the tops. The stained glass is absolutely incredible showing Bible stories in lots of small panels across the huge windows. The shear size of the place is overwhelming.
We wandered for a bit, then would sit in a pew and just swivel our heads every which way to take in all the intricate details as well as just sit and feel just how massive the place is, then wander some more.
Then it was on to the rooftop terrace and I’m so glad we decided to do this. Being up among the spires and nearer to all the incredible sculptures was amazing. And what a break we got with the weather. It was sunny and warm up on the roof and the views of Milan were great.
There were lots of people just hanging out on the rooftop terrace sunning themselves and having fun. It was such an interesting experience being up there on top of this incredible cathedral. We so glad we did it.
We navigated our way back to the metro and squeezed ourselves into a subway car. It was rush hour and the metro was very crowded but doing what the locals do (with a million tourists, too) is fun. It gives a good feeling of what life is like in Milano. And we survived the experience unscathed and happy to have ventured out on the Metro. And wouldn’t you know it, just as soon as we came up the Metro stairs out into the plaza in front of the train station, it was raining. So, how fortunate we were to be able to get to the Duomo in good weather.
It was a wonderful afternoon! And we have another adventure planned for tomorrow, so stay tuned.
We loved Milan. We didn’t get to the top of the Duomo, but are very happy that you got to do this. Good choice on y0ur part.