Day 47: Milan

Sunday, September 29

Coming to Milan was a mistake.
    Yesterday had turned out mostly disappointing, in almost every way. Truly, i'd have had the best time if i had just spent the whole day at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology.
    It is, of course, my fault. I hope that's understood every time i make this type of complaint. It's not that Milan sucks, it's that i failed to plan adequately, and was unable to successfully do so on the fly. Sometimes i can make the most of flying by the seat of my pants, sometimes i cannot. This was one of the times when i could not.
    But the main reason Milan was a mistake is just because it's so far east. At this point in the voyage, i should've just been heading south.
    If i'd gone to Milan two days sooner, as initially planned, maybe it would have been fine. Or if i'd cut my losses and let Milan go, along with the non-refundable money for that hostel, i could've done something more productive. If i had planned further ahead, maybe from Geneva, i'd have gone straight to Andorra. The extra time could have made that possible.
    And then from Andorra, maybe i could've made it to Portugal. Maybe i could've made it to the antipodes of New Zealand, which...i guess i did not write about in the prologue part of this journal??? I swear i had. It must have been in a Facebook post i made before the trip. I'd find that Facebook post right now if i weren't going through a tunnel.
    But here i am, and i must make the best it. I came to Europe to force myself to regain my ability to think on my feet, solve problems in my own unique way, and do the best i can with what i have when i have it, all of which were some of my strongest skills when i was a complete person, and which boy howdy i sure would like to have again.
    I finalized my plans while i was eating the hostel's included free breakfast, which is...well, it's free.
    I'm going to Nice.
    I really want to see Cannes, which is not far from there. I'd also love to see Monaco, which is about as close, but in the other direction. Cannes is almost non-negotiable.
    There are plenty of available hostels in Nice, and they're pretty cheap, compared to what i've been getting. So that shouldn't be a problem.
    The only problem is, the route i've selected is gonna have a couple of tight layovers to make. My experience with the trains running on time has been better on this trip than it was in 2013, but not perfect. One of these transfers is only 14 minutes. That is not comfortable.
    Given the situation with Bern and Milan, i elected to wait and book the hostel after i've made that transfer, just in case i don't make it. This means i'll be making the booking less than two hours before i'd be checking in. I really hope that's okay.
    Plan is two nights in Nice. I'll get in late tonight, the 29th, have all day the 30th to explore Nice, and then hopefully i can take a train to Cannes early - "early" - the morning of the 1st and have a day to explore there. Then, on to Barcelona.
    I haven't put all the pieces of this "brilliant" plan together yet, so i'm just. Hoping.

I'm walking around with my backpack again today, heavy as it is, because the hostel is so far away from the train station that it wouldn't make sense to go back for it later. I'll be leaving out of a different station than i arrived, which is much further to the north east. I came in at Garibaldi, i'm leaving from Lambrate.
    There's not much left on the Atlas Obscura that i particularly care about.
    Seems like the biggest tourist draw in Milan is the Duomo, the Milan Cathedral. Pictures of this thing look absolutely buck wild, and i've read that the view from the top is a must-see.
    I started walking, though it was not lost on me that i was headed toward a huge cathedral first thing on a Sunday morning. I didn't know whether i'd even be able to get in at all, and if i could, if i would be battling huge crowds in their Sunday best. But, i figured i'd deal with it when i got there.
    Walking up to the cathedral from the back, i was struck by its unfathomable immensity. This thing is bigger than the whale Moby Dick, kind of like how my log is now longer than the book Moby Dick. I waited a long time to say i'd broken Moby Dick-length, i'm gonna freakin' say it. Breaking Moby Dick-length was my white whale.
    This is how you know you're reading a first draft.
    But seriously, i cannot overstate the immensity of this thing. 108 meters tall, 158.6 meters long, and 92 meters wide, with 135 individual spires and a maximum capacity of 40,000 people, it took almost 600 years to build the thing. It's the third-largest church in the world, the biggest in Italy, larger even than Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Construction began in 1386, and was considered complete in 1965. It's mostly built of brick, but all of that is covered in Candoglia marble. The entirety of the outside surface is decorated with sculptures. Taken as a whole, it is truly one of the most intricate works of art ever conceived by mankind.

    And if i'm being fully honest about it...
    I found it revolting.
    I go to a lot of these churches and cathedrals and such, and i marvel at the artistry on display. It really is impressive, i'm in awe of the craft on display here. But, two things can be true, and the second is that i don't think this kind of consolidation of wealth is true to the spirit of any god. 600 years of collecting offerings from Milan's poor, from accepting giant monetary gifts from the fabulously wealthy, from evading taxes which could have enriched the community. For this monument to opulence.
    I didn't go inside. I'm always hesitant to pay to enter a cathedral at all, on principle, but i've ponied up €5 or 10 occasionally as the situation demands. This cathedral was asking €30, just to enter, and (i think) another €27 if you wanted to take the elevator up to the roof. That may have been if you only did the elevator to the roof and not the cathedral, i'm not sure, and stairs may or may not have been included with the regular entry fee.
    Of course, i have been to churches in Italy before; i'm aware that there are a number of modesty rules in effect that you must adhere to before entry. In Venice in 2013, to visit Saint Mark's, Amanda was made to purchase two modesty shawls, one for her sinful exposed legs and the other for her heretical bare shoulders. I, as a man, was allowed to walk inside wearing shorts. I was angry about it, and ready to bounce, but Amanda accepted it as the cost of entry, and really wanted to go inside. So she bought the shawls.
    After the tour, they had the audacity to ask for the things they'd forced her to purchase back, but she kept them. We'd made a plan to ritualistically burn them when we got home, but we never got around to it, which makes me sad now. I should do that when i get home, and film it for this video project.
    The Milan Duomo does not allow men to go inside wearing shorts. I guess i could've zip the legs back on, which probably constitutes a serious fashion violation at this point, since the shorts are so badly sunbleached that they look brownish gray, while the legs retain their deep blue color. I didn't really want to, though. Also, my backpack wasn't allowed. Another symbol crossed out a camera on a tripod, so i'm unclear if cameras aren't allowed at all, or just tripods, but i remember Saint Mark's disallowing photography and video, so probably all of the above.
    I stood in the courtyard in front of the cathedral with several thousand other tourists for a moment, wondering what to do now, since walking through this church was the only real plan i had for today. Looking at the front doors, off to the left, there was a huge arch, similar in scale to L'Arc de Triomphe. Maybe i'd walk through that, and see where i ended up.
    The arch seemed uncharacteristically deep. I soon realized it wasn't simply an arch at all, it was the entrance to a large building. And then i realized, not only was it a building, it was something else from that tourist guide i had been reading. I'd entered the Grand Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the bougiest shopping malls in the entire world.
    [I'm gonna make a note here that, at this point in the writing, i have arrived at my hostel in Paris and i've been drinking Long Islands. The commentary may become adjusted in unpredictable ways]
    This is a mall that looks like a cathedral. Created in 1877 by Guiseppe Mengoni, it's one of the oldest shopping malls in the world. Its four wings, in cruciform, contain stores for high-end brands like Gucci, Prada, Versace, and Rolex, all existing under a high, domed glass ceiling, to bathe all the shoppers in natural sunlight.
    Milan, the fashion capital of the world.

    I had kind of wanted to check this place out, for the superb architecture, but for some reason i had thought it was closed today. Guess i was wrong.
    Right at the mouth of the mall, closest to the church, i saw a gelato shop. I wove my way through the crowd to answer its sirens call, only to find that a large glass door was down across the thing. However, as i approached, the glass door began to rise. I was just in time to see them open.
    I headed into the corrals to start the queue. Four other tourists followed me.
    Two women came out to the front of the shop, wiping down the glass surfaces, and addressed us first in Italian, then in English, "It's not open yet! Please step back!"
    I started to make for the exit to the queue, to leave, because i didn't feel like waiting around for gelato, while everyone else backed up into the corrals. But just before i got out, i realized, why? I've got nowhere else to be. And don't i want the prestige of getting the first scoop of the day from the gelato shop at the Grand Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II? Also, don't i want a good gelato experience in Italy before i leave, after the travesty that happened yesterday?
    I do.
    I took my rightful spot at the head of the line.
    That line started filling in behind us. People wanted their gelato.
    When they finally opened up, i got a "Normale" size scoop of hazelnut chocolate, in a paper dish, so that it couldn't bleed on me this time.
    I stepped off into a side hallway to consume my bounty.
    Yes.
    Yes, this is what i wanted from genuine Italian gelato.
    Mmm.
    Pure bliss.
    Once it was gone, i finished walking through the mall. So many expensive brand stores. And then there was a book shop at the other end, which seemed pretty normal.
    Coming out the other side, i found myself in Piazza della Scala, a courtyard around a large statue of Leonardo da Vinci. I had a seat, and consulted my lists to see what else to do. I wanted to keep moving in the direction of Milano Lambrate, so i was looking for something to the northeast.
    The "Quadrilatero del Silenzio" was on one of the tourist guides, and i thought that might be interesting for a few minutes. I plugged it into my GPS, and made my way there.
    The article had given me the impression that i'd be coming to a park that had pink flamingos, a rare sight in Italy, though they would be in a gated area beyond my reach. It sounded like the Quadrangle of Silence would be a nice, quiet place to rest for a bit, and observe the birds.
    GPS led me to the gate of an apartment building, with a courtyard garden in the middle. All i could see through the gate was a twoish-foot-high cement barrier with some plants on top of it, and the front of someone's car.
    Thinking the building itself was the Quadrangle of Silence, i walked all the way around it, finding no further gates. Just the one. Which i could see no flamingos or anything of note through.
    I'd passed through a small garden park just across the street from this building, though. I returned there, and looked around. Every building coming off of this park had one of those gates facing the center. And every building had weird architecture, featuring plenty of statues and sculptures. I wondered if this entire square was the Quadrangle of Silence.
    I checked the article again. Upon re-reading, i got the impression that the Quadrangle is actually this whole neighborhood, and the flamingos are not the entire appeal. It makes note of the quirky architecture, buildings with secret gardens, and sculptures abound.
    Another thing it mentions is the "huge ear-shaped bronze doorbell," a description that i recognized from an Atlas Obscura article, The Bronze Ear of Casa Sola-Busca. Since it was mentioned by a tourism article, and since i was evidently pretty close, i decided to grab those GPS coordinates and head on over, having given up on seeing any flamingos through the gates to any of these secret gardens. Since these were all active apartment buildings, private residences, i was feeling weird about being here and filming stuff again, just like with the Wooden House District in Oslo and Rue Crémieux (the Instagram street) in Paris.
    Just a few blocks away, i found the flamingos.
    They were behind a wrought-iron gate, with plenty of trees obscuring them, in a concrete pond. Clearly the private collection of a rich person, which is what i'd expected anyway. Despite the sub-optimal conditions for viewing the birds, they had attracted a dozen or so onlookers anyway, including a family with small kids, and someone with a much more serious camera setup than mine.
    Well, now i've seen flamingos in Italy.

    It was hardly the relaxing park experience i was expecting. I have no idea how this made it onto a list of top things to do in Milan on a busy tourist website. This definitely seems like it should be more of an Atlas Obscura article, and probably not a very popular one, at that.
    The Bronze Ear of Casa Sola-Busca was installed on the front door of an early-modern building in 1930. The ear contains one of the first intercom systems, so that visitors to the house can announce themselves into the ear, and the message will be relayed into the house. The ear remained in use after the original owners moved out, but more recent tenants have had it disconnected, annoyed by the number of curious passers-by who have come to yell nonsense into it.
    I got my pic and moved along.

    Palazzo Berri-Meregalli is also very near to the ear. I knew this one was closed today, but from the article, it seemed like it would still be worthwhile to see from the outside. Built between 1911-13, it's a conglomeration of several mismatched styles of different eras, including gothic, Art Nouveau, and ancient Roman loggia, the sides of the building sport gargoyles, other strange sculptures, and a seemingly unending barrage of esoteric details.
    The front door is an iron gate, so you can look into the main passage. At the end, a strange installation of what seems to be a woman's disembodied head with fluttering wings growing from the back of the neck stands on a post, the face frozen in an enigmatic expression. Is she orgasming? Is she in pain? Is she having an existential crisis? All of the above and more?
    Who can say?

    No seriously, somebody please give me the answers, i need them for science.
    Since my reading comprehension has evidently gone to hell, either simply because i've read so many of these articles and been to so many places in the last few weeks that it all has blurred together and i can't keep everything straight in my mind, or because my brain is damaged and porous from being nearly 40 years old, riddled with grief and depression, and having had Covid four times, i thought this building was supposed to be a library. Nope! Another private residence! A very strange apartment building, in fact, so all of these people looked at the gargoyles and the disembodied pain orgasm face and said, yeah. Feels like home.
    I mean. Yeah i would, too, probably.
    The "opening hours" listed are because they do raise the gate and let the looky-loos come in and check out the lobby, with its strange naked angel statues and paintings that stretch across the ceiling, none of which i could see from outside the gate.
    12:45. Three hours until my train. I gave myself two more objectives: Albergo Diurno Venezia, and finding some good Italian food to see me off.
    Albergo Diurno Venezia is an abandoned underground bathhouse and barber shop built under Piazza Oberdan between 1923-25. Literally right beneath a busy street intersection, the bathhouse used to be accessible from a door off of the nearby subway exit. The Atlas Obscura article was written in 2015, and mentions recently-begun restoration work. Since it's been nine years, i had no idea what i was going to walk into. Would it be fully restored and back in business? Would it have been re-abandoned? Would it be open to tourists in its decayed state, as a curiosity? Would i be able to access it at all, without breaking in? Would i break in?
    I probably would not break in. Not without a local guide.
    I arrived at the intersection, not really sure where to go from there.
    I sat down on the steps of a square building with Roman columns that was otherwise surrounded by temporary construction fencing, unsure if this building was, in fact, the subway entrance. Since the Atlas Obscura article wasn't giving me much more than the GPS coordinates to the center of that busy intersection, i tried Googling "Albergo Diurno Venezia," and got a Wikipedia page, of all things.
    That article had a lot of pictures, some of which were the same ones from Atlas Obscura, and went through the history of the original construction, up to the more recent excavation and restoration plans. It was fully excavate of the decades of rubble and trash by volunteers in 2014, and restoration plans were beginning in 2015...
    And then the Wikipedia article ends, with a final sentence saying that guided tours are available once a month through a third party.
    The link to the booking site to get a tour was entirely in Italian, but i did not get the impression that it was actually about Albergo Diurno Venezia at all. Now that i'm on my laptop and i can translate it...yeah, that's accurate, it doesn't mention the location at all, and it's not even the same third party that's mentioned in the article. That party's web site link on Wikipedia goes to an archive.org link that hasn't been snapshotted since November 2016.
    So i didn't think i had any chance of getting in there.
    I went down into the subway anyway, and found a ridiculously huge, empty room, similar to the liminal spaces of the other subway stations, but without the high cathedral ceilings. With its standard ten-foot ceiling, this one just looks like a school cafeteria consumed the rest of the school.

    Stazione Porta Venezia had plenty of unmarked, locked doors and blocked-off gates, it would have been impossible to determine which held the secret bathhouse without extensive research, which i was not invested enough to do. Maybe in a few years, i'll plan another trip around Europe focused on sneaking into hidden spaces, after i've gained some experience in America and earned the trust of a few established online urbex groups. Assuming i ever do that. What with all the other niche hyperfocuses i already don't have time for.
    I came up from that subway station quite far from where i'd entered, maybe two whole city blocks, it was so expansive. It was unplanned, but fortunately, it was two blocks in the correct direction.
    With no further specific objectives, i set my GPS for Milan Lambrate, and kept an eye out for a good-looking restaurant on the way. I didn't want to search Google for highly-rated restaurants this time, that didn't work out the best yesterday. I just wanted to find a more hole-in-the-wall, mom and pop-looking place and try my luck.
    Sleppa didn't quite fit that bill, but it had a fun atmosphere, with bright colors and original cartoon characters on the walls. I made eye contact with the waitress, and she swooped outside to seat me immediately. Guess i'm eating here.
    I had been hoping for pasta. She handed me the menu, and it turned out this was exclusively a pizza place. I can roll with that. Genuine Italian pizza, sure, let's go.
    The trouble was that so many of the pizzas on the menu looked absolutely incredible. They did have a salmon pizza, i considered it carefully, figuring that if anyone could make this work, it would be the Italians. But the memory of the French salmon pizza was still fresh enough that i thought i should try something different. The Passionale looked up my alley, a truffle salami pizza. Or the Pistacchiosa, a pizza with pistachio cream and pistachio granola? Interesting.
    I ordered Mon Amour, a piza with cream of zucchini, fiordilatte, zucchini scapece, and parmigiano reggiano chips. The price, once again, seemed to indicate this was a personal pizza. Just like every other pizza i've ordered on this trip.
    I swear they just keep getting bigger.

    Good lord was it delicious though. This is definitely among the very best pizzas i've ever had in my life, no exaggeration. I'd love to go back to that pizza place every day and try everything on their menu, if i could.
    Plus the waitress was cute and kinda flirty and i'm receptive to that right now.
    I ate the whole pizza with no regrets. I knew it was likely my last meal for the day.
    I made it to the train station and up to my platform with 45 minutes to wait.
    And then.
    I got on the wrong train.
    A different train, which was running late, pulled in at that platform just a couple minutes before mine was supposed to. It wasn't labeled. I walked in, even though i noted many people were still holding back on the platform, hoping that the monitors inside would confirm this was, in fact, the train to Genova Principe. The monitors did not state a destination, but the train's ID number was wrong. This happens sometimes, they don't always match.
    The train started moving. I hadn't sat down. I ended up standing near a door, watching a monitor, which indicated the next stop was Milano Rogoredo. This was consistent with the itinerary that i had for the train i needed.
    The conductor came through. I flagged her down.
    "Is this the train to Genova?" i asked, showing her my phone.
    "No," she answered. "You need to switch at..." and she named a couple of options, but i didn't process them.
    Fuck. Shit.
    I was already on a tight schedule for transfers with this route anyway. Twenty-six minutes to make the change at Genova, then a mere 14 at Ventimiglia. If i missed either of those, i was probably not going to make it to Nice tonight.
    I'd already approached the situation with that possibility in mind, though, since that 14 minute transfer is kind of terrifying. I had not booked a hostel in Nice yet.
    There were plenty of available options, though, so i didn't expect any trouble with that. I planned to make the booking as soon as i was safely on the last train, in Ventimiglia.
    Since i knew that both this train and my train stopped at Milano Rogoredo, i jumped off there. My route was scheduled to get there six minutes later, so i had that much time to try and figure out which track it would be coming in on. The platform did have a monitor showing the next few arrivals on that track, but my train was not among them.
    I was trying to get through the crowd and down off of the platform, hoping to find a departure board, when the main monitor over the platform changed. It had not shown any information for the train i'd just gotten off of, just like the platform at Milano Lambrate hadn't. But what came up next was exactly what i was looking for.
    Thank Dio.
    The train pulled in exactly on time, and i boarded.
    This train had just the worst toilet, i swear to god.
    We did start getting behind schedule soon enough, though. By the time we reached Genova, we were 16 minutes late. Eight minutes to make the transfer.
    I barreled down the stairs into the tunnel between tracks. We'd come in on track 16 or 18, i don't know for sure. There was a departure monitor just a couple doors down. There was my train, listed as platform 11. Perfect. That's like, right here.
    I got up on to the platform and...had plenty of time to stand in the crowd and wait. The train hadn't arrived yet.

    It was right on time, though. So yeah, if my first train had gotten much later...definitely would have missed this.
    Until it got dark, i had beautiful views of the Ligurian Sea right out the window. Or the Tyrrhenian Sea. Or Balearic. Or is this just all the Mediterranean? Every map and article i check tells me something different. I cannot figure out where those seas actually diverge.
    It might be like nesting dolls. The Ligurian might be a part of the Tyrrhenian, which might be part of the Mediterranean. Like this sea has provinces. I don't know, i'm bad at geography.
    This train also was a bit slow. I was anxiously checking every few stops to see what time we were actually at them versus what time we were meant to be.  At one point, we were 11 minutes behind schedule. Which would leave me three minutes to make my last transfer. Google Maps was not giving me a platform number.
    Fortunately, somehow we picked up some of those missing minutes, and made Ventimiglia only four minutes late. Ten minutes was plenty of time to find my platform and get on the train to Nice.
    I walked all the way down to the very end of the train before i found a car that was split half and half between first and second class. I'd walked by literally four completely empty cars to get here. The other two trains had been entirely second class. There was only one other person in first class. Some more got on as we went, but overall, it was a quiet ride.
    The train passed through Monaco, but i didn't know it until i was already in France. Too bad, it sucks i didn't get to put boots on the ground in Monaco, but at least i could've taken a blurry and useless photo of the street lights at night through the window. Something to be like, hey, i was in Monaco once!
    I had a very pleasant walk through Nice at night. It's a pretty city, there are palm trees and cactuses, but i could tell right away that it's very touristy. This is definitely one of those summer hot spots, what with all the beaches and everything.
    My hostel, Villa Saint Exupery Beach, has fascinating geometry and even more interesting decoration. There are two lion statues, about waist-high, guarding the door to my room. The bar has a second story, which includes a cutout section of floor where there is a net you can lounge in, with your butt hanging over everyone on the ground floor. The house special is a Long Island, so i grabbed one of those, and got to work on my log.
    They did kick us all out of the common room at midnight, though, which i haven't experienced at a hostel before, so i took a break, and figured i'd finish up the log the next day. As i just have.