A Tale of Two Cities

After a refreshing night's sleep (and a glorious Skype with Callum, feat. baby Theo "Teddy Westside" Mansfield) we awoke to a cold, rainy and overcast Milanese morning. For those of you who have followed previous posts, this should come as no surprise, given the weather curse placed upon us by Zach "We have had such nice weather in Rome" Raftery. Eager not to miss anything in Milan, we rushed through breakfast (served American Style - 70% fatty bacon so burnt it was no longer recognisable as a meat) and hit the streets.

Being the fashionistas we are, we made a bee-line for the major fashion houses in the "quadrangle" surrounding Via Montnapoleone. To our surprise, when we reached it (9am) the shopping district contained 75 Asian/Hispanic cleaners (even in Italy, the cleaners are Mexican) and 3 blowing tumbleweeds.

 

After wandering aimlessly for an hour, it dawned on us that today was a Saturday. Already intimately acquainted with the lazy Italian attitude, we realised that hope was lost, and planted ourselves on a freezing cold bench for a further hour.

By 11am, we had seen a beyond ridiculous number of (fake?) Louis Vuitton bags wielded by sunken-faced model types carrying accessory cigarettes, and decided it was time to make our move. Our first stop was Gucci, where we were immediately accosted - sorry, "assisted" - by Stanley Tucci's body double (the guy from Devil Wears Prada).

 

I immediately fell in love with a small black bag, which Zach, going along with the charade, decided to open. He failed, and the assistant stepped in prevent these two clearly poverty-stricken travellers from destroying his precious calf skin bag - sorry, to help. To his credit though, Stanley didn't blink once as he announced the bag was $1,900 dollars. He even offered it in python, if I preferred. We decided to "keep looking". We rushed through a few other joints you may have heard of - Louis Vuitton (where Zach was kindly requested to "sir, SIR, PLEEEEEZEE do not touch zee displays" by a French shop assistant displaying an appropriate level of disdain, and a burly black body guard "subtly" changed sides of the room to match us), Chanel (we weren't even offered assistance we were so beneath them), Bvulgari, Prada and Omega. In Guess, everyone was actually genuinely helpful with the exception of the sales clerk. As a side note, I am not sure why these people have such a superior attitude, they sell the product…. the difference between them and the 14 year old behind the counter at McDonalds is the lack of Fries. Anyway, Guess bag in hand, we hit a few more stores. What an attitude change! Suddenly, politeness ensued, as people realised that maybe these travellers had some coin to spend. Zach bought himself a Montblanc belt, and we continued on with the Milanese charade.

One thing about Italy is that in many cases, dogs have more rights than you. In Chanel, a woman let her unleashed dog prance about on the stairs beside her. In Versace, we actually witnessed a large hound pull free of its owner to sniff the life-sized ceramic nativity sheep guarding baby's Jesus' manger. We were not even allowed to walk without supervision. I hate Italians. I am delighted to report that we did get some revenge though… Zach indadvertedly stood on a rather ugly dog at one point, causing the owner much grief. We may have had a secret giggle.

In the afternoon, we took a tour of the highlights. The Duomo, a spectacularly beautiful, if dirty church which took hundreds of years to construct and was redesigned so many times it is almost unbelievable.

The inside possesses such treasures as a statue of St. Bartholomew holding his skin (his supposed method of martyrdom) and 2 long-dead Milanese Archbishops displayed in all their finery in glass cabinets. Thankfully, a silver mask was placed over each of their faces a few months ago, but their hairy scalps and bare skulls are still very much evident. Creepy, and definitely not a place to bring the family. Other stops included a beautiful shopping area called the Galleria, a statue of Leonardo da Vinci, an external view of a rather boring Opera theatre and the enormous Sforza castle. Our last stop was the most exciting church, Santa Maria Delle Grazie (which Zach literally translated to "Saint Maria of the Thanks") - home to Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper". 

 

Determined to make the most of our money, Zach and I darted to poll viewing position (middle and front), and didn't move for the entirety of the 15 minutes. The rude italians have sure had an effect on us! Seeing it in real life was breath-taking, and the artistry of the whole thing was rather clever. Well, with the exception of one thing - the technique. Seems Leonardo was rather slow and indecisive - traits not at all well suited to fresco - so he decided to use a different style of painting. That was a dumbass move, because the painting is now faded beyond repair. Michelangelo wouldn't have done that shit. It's also a pity that the previous monk-owners cut a chunk out of the painting (Jesus' feet) for their dining hall door. Dumb and dumber, really. When our 15 minutes were up, we made a slow retreat, pausing for about 2 seconds to look at some painting by some other dude at the other end of the hall. That's what you get for painting in the same room as da Vinci. Bad luck, bro.

The next day, we indulged in a mini sleep-in before catching a train to Venice. We checked in at our hotel, which was decorated in an appropriately decadent Venetian manner, and set off to explore. It turns out that Venice is an absolutely divine city that smells faintly like a combination of sewer and rotting fish. Go figure. Though this somewhat lessens the romance, you can't fight the fact that every view is a photo opportunity. Navigating proved somewhat challenging initially, and we did somehow manage to end up on the complete opposite side of Venice to where we wanted to be, but we had time to kill, and it was nice to just absorb a city.

Our second day lead us to many of the same sights as the day before - the Rialto Bridge, St Mark's Square, St Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace - for a more thorough exploration. The Doge's palace was pretty grand, our favourite being the map room, complete with two gigantic globes. The maps themselves followed Italian tradition (countries drawn from the perspective of the Italians), and were quite beautiful. We also hit up the armoury, which contained not only a myriad of old school weapons and armour, but also a horrifically painful looking chastity belt. Not at all like the one in "Robin Hood, Men in Tights" for those of you who have seen it. Without going into too much detail it had teethed jaws…. two of them. Quite effective, I'd say. We then ventured across the "Bridge of Sighs" (and sighed accordingly, though the famed view is actually rather obstructed by grating) into the prisons, which seemed like rather a pleasant place to rest one's head.

Next stop was St Mark's Basilica, which had a sign up saying check all bags at some place rather far away from here. This is no surprise in Italy, though the rules are fuzzy, and I am often allowed my bag, while Zach's (equally small) backpack is rejected. Looking around, we saw many women carting in bags that could easily smuggle 3 small children, and thought that perhaps Zach might get away with it this time. However, no sooner did he set one foot inside the door, when a dirty looking Italian man grabbed Zach and pointed to the sign. This may or may not had led to me hurling a few choice Australianisms at said man, and audibly declaring for what feels like the hundredth time "I hate Italians!". Knowing that is is quite literally a 3 minute circuit inside, Zach decided to forgo a second visit and waited outside for me. I ventured in (glaring at the door guard) and soaked up the church. It was quite beautiful, though to see anything worth seeing you had to pay a "small" fee. All up, it would have cost around 15 Euro, money I was not prepared to give the owners of such an institution.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets, eating gelati and perusing delightful, overpriced tourist merchandise. 

 

As night fell (4pm), the city was emptied of its worker population (they all live elsewhere), and being low season, consequently became a ghost town. Venice is a creepy city with no-one in it. So, we headed back to the hotel to wait out the 7 hours before our overnight train. The hotel kindly allowed us to leech seat space and internet even though we were already checked out. Okay, so not all Italians are bad.

Next stop, Munchen!

PS. Venice was also grey and rainy, just in case you were wondering. Weatherman Zach is trying to use Winter as a defence, but you can't argue with correlations.