Basilica day

Every morning, on Weasel jaunts, John and I venture out looking for a breakfast baker and an espresso, to start the morning right. We tend to knock back the small morning coffee, make a judgement on the aroma and taste, then take the breakfast pastries back to the accommodation for the remaining Weasels. We didn’t have much luck yesterday but this morning, that changed.

Not only did we find an excellent patisserie but it also scored very highly on the espresso scale. Had it not been for the perfect one we had last night after dinner, this mornings would have scored 10 out of 10. The bun I had was pretty good too.

Of course, you can generally tell a good breakfast place by the length of the queue heading out of the door. While there wasn’t one when we arrived, it was starting to snake down the street when we left. We know where we’re going tomorrow.

Eventually, having enjoyed our morning repast, we headed out to the Metro for the journey downtown to the first Basilica today. It was the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, right next to The Last Supper Museum Ticket Office, which we didn’t bother visiting because it is sold out until the end of October.

Mind you, as I explained to John and Lindy, I’ve already seen The Last Supper at Boman’s in Trosa so I don’t need to see it again.

Besides, the basilica was much more interesting than a single, dusty painting about 13 men having dinner.

It is a Dominican convent that is also a World Heritage site. And, as soon as you step through the door, it’s easy to see why.

The walls, columns and ceiling are stunningly painted with curly designs and gorgeous frescoes. Alive with colour. It is a beautiful place, although it was the idea of a Sforza. Francesco I Sforza, to be exact, the Duke of Milan. He decided he wanted a convent so he got architect Guiniforte Solari to design him one. And it had to be Dominican. I don’t know why.

Guiniforte got to work and the Gothic nave was completed by 1469. The rest of the place took yonks. Frank never saw it complete and it’s not recorded what he thought about that. A little later, Duke Ludovico Sforza (1452-1508) decided that the church would be an excellent burial site for him and his family. He had it rebuilt to serve his purposes.

His wife, Beatrice was buried there in 1497 after she died in childbirth. She was only 18 and pretty fiesty but, it seems, Ludovico was one big lothario and had kids with just about every woman in Milan. Poor Beatrice was particularly upset when her best and trusted hand maiden became pregnant and old Ludo was the father.

Historically, her premature death ended up being a bit shit for Milan. At the first attempt, French Duke Louis d’Orléans almost took Milan only to be thwarted by Beatrice. Of course, when he returned for a second bite of the Milanese cherry, Bea was dead. Milan became French.

But that is not that relevent to the convent.

Above is the queue to see the painting next door. And they all have timed tickets.

But, back at the basilica…

In 1543, a Titian alterpiece was added and probably looked lovely. You can’t see it these days because the French army nicked it in 1797 and it’s now in the Louvre. The whole convent was almost destroyed by allied bombing during the Second World War and The Last Supper was saved by chance given the wall it was on was one of the few that remained standing.

Obviously, the place has had some significant renovation work done on it though the paintwork looks delightfully old.

I thought the place was lovely. Peaceful, calm, spiritual. John said it was the complete opposite to the Duomo yesterday. I rather liked the fact that the chairs had been pushed to the sides. It made the place feel bigger.

There is also a lovely little cloister where the day could be enjoyed in peace and tranquility though only before the internal combustion engine was created. Nowadays, leaving the confines of the actual building subjects you to traffic noise. Still, the greenery was nice.

We left the basilica, having roamed up one side then down the other to admire the many chapels (or cells, as Lindy calls them), and enjoyed a coffee break at the convenient cafe across the piazza, where the waitress has to dodge cars whenever she leaves the cafe to serve the customers outside.

Sufficiently refreshed, we headed for the Museum of Science and Technology. This was really more for John and Lindy as I spent a lot of time there back in 2018. I’ll not bother going over that again but here’s a photo.

That’s an x-ray of a bus full of people. I said to Lindy that it’s the Route Straight to Hell. That’s us reflected in the glass.

Following a long trek from one end of the museum to the other, we searched around and discovered a lovely cafe that seemed to be a bit of a TARDIS given it was pretty small yet held thousands of people.

We were lucky to get in, actually. Everywhere else was rammed. And the one we settled in, Caffe Carducci, quickly filled after we sat.

We had a light lunch and had water to drink. Fortunately, the water bottle had instructions on it otherwise I may have just died of thirst.

Thank goodness for that I said, only to discover that Lindy and John didn’t have instructions on their bottles. The clever clogs managed without.

Having filled a panini sized hole, we headed across the road to the second basilica of the day, Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio. Yet another beautiful, peaceful space with the added touch of some sort of Greek Orthodox ceremony going on above the crypt. There was even music.

The basilica is one of the oldest churches in Milan. St Ambrose (Lindy said he invented rice pudding) was induced to build it to comemorate a couple of martyred saints in the years 379–386. The two saints, Gervasus and Protasus, had been killed during a Roman Christian purge at some stage and, apparently were buried where Ambrose built the church.

Ambrose is also buried somewhere in the church as well as King Louis II of Italy.

Actually, Ambrose was a bit manic when it came to having churches built. During his time in office, he decided to have three or four more dotted around Milan. It was during the schism in the Catholic church and he was for the pope while the others were not. All a bit stupid but that’s religion for you.

Of course, the allies during the Second World War blew the shit out of it which makes me wonder what god thought of that. The place was extensively restored afterwards. Fortunately, the wonderful golden mosaic of Christ the Procrastinator looks as good as new.

Given our advancing ages, it was pretty apparent that we needed to wind up our day of visiting and head back to the flat for a pre-dinner rest. Besides, our heads were pretty full.

Then, to round the day off perfectly, we had dinner at another Italian reastaurant, this time one that specialises in seafood.

We have really lucked out as far as places to eat go and tonight was no exception. Delicious. This place gets top marks from the Weasels.

Amore Gusto does great seafood.

A stroll back to the flat then bed. Tomorrow is our last full day in Milan.