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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 45.4637, 9.18813
It was probably the perfect morning to be leaving Rome - pouring rain, and getting colder...still, it was very hard to realise that, to all intents and purposes, our holiday was ending.
We packed - bloody hell, how did we accumulate so much stuff? I blame Steven! - and then shipped the kids downstairs to wait with Cathy whilst we met the landlord and checked out of the apartment. Then, into taxis and off to the Termini train station. We were all a little freaked out by the fact that we think someone tried to pickpocket Steven's backpack the day before, and by the number of dodgy people hanging around the train station - the kids picked up on our nerves and Georgia in particular was very concerned. We had the only bad food we had eaten in Italy, from the train station cafe, and stood waiting, first to confirm that our online purchased tickets didn't need to be verified etc, and then secondly, to find which platform we needed to go to, I now sympathise with Mum and Dad, who had the same stress re platforms and the difficulties of being in a wheelchair with heaps of luggage!
But then,
we were on the Freccia Rosso, travelling 298km/hour through the Lazio countryside. It was fantastic - very comfortable, and so fast. We travelled without incidence to Milan, where we walked straight into a maxi-taxi which took us to our hotel. We were staying at the same hotel that Rita and Elio had stayed, months before - about 15 blocks from the Duomo, and right next to the Da Vinci Last Supper church.
It was a bit cold and wet, but we walked up to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is an impressive shopping mall, and into the Duomo - unfortunately, the Duomo is being renovated (a never-ending process, I am sure), and was extremely noisy with sandblasting and grinding. To be honest, it isn't a Cathedral that does much for me - its dark, though huge, and it was good to show the kids the building that was SMALLER than the caves we had visited a few days ago.
Then, we faded - finally, we found a cafe for everyone to have something to eat. A cruddy railway station breakfast, and an average on-board cafe lunch, and we were ready for something yummy! Then back to the hotel for a bit
of a rest, before our timed tickets to
Il Cenacolo - the Last Supper by Da Vinci.
We had been fortunate months ago when we realised that we needed to book 90 days in advance to see the Last Supper. We were even more fortunate when the lady printing our tickets investigated further and confirmed that we DID book tickets for the 5 of us, not just 2 adults as she initially thought. The Last Supper was painted by Da Vinci in about 1497, and has badly deteriorated. Indeed, it was a new method being trialled by Da Vinci, and started deteriorating almost immediately, with records showing that it was "ruined" by 1530! It also started as the exterior wall in a mausoleum, later being incorporated into a refectory of the monastery. It has been "retouched" many times, and when you read the history of the restorations and damage to the building, it is remarkable that there is anything left, 500 years later. I was glad we had seen it, but don't know that I would rate it as the most amazing art I've ever seen. Steven liked the painting by a less famous artist on the back wall better!
Then, off to dinner - the place we were aiming for had closed down, but we ended up at a very genuine Italian place, with a Nonno bustling around telling everyone to eat more! Great risotto Milanese, as you would expect.
The hotel was fine - kids were in a triple room, just near us. Only problem was that, in the ground floor rooms, we could hear the Metro trains going underneath us every 5 minutes....
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