We checked out, left our luggage in the narrow front hall, across from the desk, and caught a Metro train for Cadorna station. From there, we walked a few blocks to Santa Maria delle Grazie and the Cenacolo Vinciano. Attached to the church was a Dominican monastery. When it was built in the second half of the fifteenth century, the friars commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a mural on the north wall of the refectory (dining hall). The subject of the painting was the moment at the Last Supper when Jesus had just told his disciples that one of them would betray him. This is, of course, Leonardo's second most famous painting, after the Mona Lisa.
After much online and telephone ado, I had finally managed, about a month before, to get a voucher for tickets to the 9:30 English-language guided tour of the Last Supper, on August 15th, the day we would be in Milan. So now I turned this voucher in for our tickets. In order to conserve the painting, which was already beginning to flake a few years after it was finished, due to the failure of Leonardo's experimental painting technique, only a few people are allowed into the room at any time, and only for fifteen minutes.
In our group, most of the people were Japanese, on a guided tour. After I got our tickets, the Japanese tour director asked us if we needed two tickets, since two of her people hadn't shown up. Having a few minutes to kill, We wandered around the neighborhood. It appeared to be a very nice, rather wealthy urban neighborhood.
Our tour guide spoke English with a heavy Italian accent, so it wasn't always easy to understand her. We entered the refectory through a series of anterooms, one after the other, sort of like decompression chambers. The idea was to control the climate in the room as absolutely as possible. Once inside, we went up to a wall before the painting. Although it has had a fairly recent restoration, the Last Supper has what on "Antiques Roadshow" would be called "major condition issues." Nevertheless, it is a powerful piece of art. The focus is on the calm face of Jesus, while the disciples, in groups of three, lean back, aghast, except for Peter,who is asking John who Jesus means, and Judas.
We then went to the other end of the room, to get a better look at how it actually first appeared, since the friars later built up the floor (and had to cut Jesus's feet out of the picture, in order to make the doorway under it higher). After fifteen minutes, the far door opened and we were all summarily commanded to leave.
Since we had a little time, we walked the few blocks to the Sforza Castle, an impressive brick monstrosity, designed mainly to protect the Sforza dukes from unruly subjects. Incidentally, the Sforza coat of arms was a serpent swallowing a man.
We walked to a tram stop and caught a tram down to the Duomo. Everyone else got off at the stop just before the Duomo, and we were about to do the same (I was actually off the tram), but Mary Joy asked the driver, and he said that there was still one stop to go. Then he added that we shouldn't really be vacationing here, but in Naples! Milan is an ugly city, and all it has going for it is the Duomo, but Naples is bellissima! The food is much better there. We'd have a much better time there than here. Mary Joy agreed that Milan is ugly, and that we ,should someday go to Naples. Then we said goodbye and got off the tram. I think we can guess what part of the country the driver is from.
We were a little early for the 11:00 mass, but the cathedral chapter (the priests of the cathedral) were doing morning prayer, along with a small choir, which turned out to be the choir that would sing at mass. The cardinal-archbishop was there, I think (certainly, some bishop), and he presided at mass. The organ and organist were impressive. The mass itself was in the Ambrosian Rite, local to Milan and slightly different from the Roman Rite (I had difficulty noticing any differences, but Mary Joy pointed some out, mostly having to do with a lot more "Kyrie eleisons."
We had a very nice (if pricy: there was a cover charge--something very common in Italian restaurants--of five euros apiece, I think it was) lunch at the Bar Literaria (?) in the Galleria, then had some more gelato at Grom, then rushed back to the Hotel Stazione to pick up our luggage, and got onto our train a few minutes before it left.
This is one of two train tickets I had bought in advance on the Internet. I was afraid that on a holiday there would be crowds of Milanese heading for the beach. As a result, we had only paid nine euros apiece for reserved seats on the high-speed train to our next destination, Desenzano, a beach resort on Lake Garda.
Since we only wanted to spend four nights in Venice, we had one night available to break the journey from Milan. We had thought of Bergamo ( too far out of the way) and Vicenza, but Mary Joy thought it would be nice to have a break between city stays, so while we realized that the Lago di Garda would be overflowing with vacationing Italians, we decided to splurge a little for half a day at the lake. Since Desenzano is on the main line from Milan to Venice, it wouldn't be out of our way.
The train ride was fast and uneventful, but then we ran into a few problems. I had printed off directions to our hotel, but the night before, I realized that these directions were for Hotel Aurora, not our Hotel Astoria. I looked online for a map, and got an idea of how to get there, but we didn't have any way of printing it and I didn't write directions down. That presumably wouldn't matter. Because the hotel was two kilometers from the station, we'd get a taxi.
However, when we came out of the station to the taxi stand, there were a number of people waiting, but no taxis. As the minutes ticked by, still no taxis, and people started to give up and walk. But I wasn't sure where to walk. I went in to the station tabacchi (sort of a newsstand-tobacco shop) and asked if they had a map of the city. No. I could get one at Tourist Information, just go straight down that street for a kilometer.
So we started walking, in the hot sunshine. I carried Mary Joy's big backpack and eventually took my daypack as well, while she pulled my rolling bag and carried her own daypack. Eventually, we came to a traffic circle and had to choose from three possible directions. I decided to follow the narrowest street, because it was closest to being straight ahead. That turned out to be the wrong decision. If we had gone to the left, that would eventually have taken us right past our hotel. As it was, after some time we found ourselves in the pedestrianized center of Desenzano, on the lake next to the small port. Now what?
We saw a bar that advertised WiFi. So we sat at a terrace table with our bags, to order drinks and use Google Maps to find out where we were and where we wanted to be. But the one waitress was very busy, so we gave up and left.
Next, I went into a store and asked the clerk if she knew where Hotel Astoria was. She had never heard of it, but looked it up online. It was on Antonio Gramsci, she said. She wasn't sure where the hotel itself was, but gave me complicated instructions on how to find Via Antonio Gramsci. Once there, she said, I could ask for further directions. So I left Mary Joy with our luggage and headed off in the direction that the store clerk had indicated. Within ten minutes I was back in the central piazza, since I had found myself having to choose among various directions with no real idea what I was doing. I went into a bar and asked if they had a map. The woman at the bar thought that they did, but on consultation with a colleague, decided that they didn't, after all. However, I could get one at the Tourist Information. And where was that? In that building over there, around behind.
So I went around behind that building, and sure enough, there was the tourist information office.
"Buon giorno, Signora. Parla inglese?"
"Of course. How can I help you?"
"We have a problem. We are lost. We cannot find our hotel."
"Yes, you have a big problem."
"Do you know where we can find the Hotel Astoria?"
"Well, that's very easy. It's a five minute walk from here."
She got me a map and drew out a route along the waterfront.
I collected Mary Joy and the luggage and we crossed the little harbor and walked along the lake. Five minutes and no Hotel Astoria. Ten minutes and no Hotel Astoria. I left Mary Joy on a bench and went on ahead. Eventually, I saw the Hotel Aurora, but no Astoria. However, the store clerk's directions finally proved useful, as Via Antonio Gramsci came down to the lake. A block or so up this street there was a sign for Hotel Astoria. I went back for Mary Joy and the luggage, and we finally checked in.
This was a very nice hotel (air conditioned, of course), with a very pleasant and helpful staff.
We decided to take the ferry across the lake to Sirmione, which is a much cuter, more picturesque and expensive resort than Desenzano. We had restaurant recommendations for Sirmione, but none for Desenzano. The problem was that we would have to catch the ferry back, and the last one ran at 8:00, a little more than two hours after our arrival. After wandering around looking at the scenery and not finding any place to eat, because they were all either a) closed for the holiday, b) closed on Wednesdays, c) not open until 7 p.m. or d) too expensive, we ran back to the port to catch the 7:10 ferry back to Desenzano.
We asked the owner (?) if he knew of any good restaurants, and he replied that he knew exactly the right place: close by, inexpensive, with very good food. He gave us a card and the directions to Al Ceppo, on the waterfront not far away. It was exactly what we wanted, full of Italian families, with people waiting to be seated. After a relatively short wait, we were seated and had a very nice dinner, though after nearly a week, I don't remember exactly what it was. People were still arriving for dinner at 9:30. Italy is not quite as late-eating as Spain, where formal restaurants open around 8:30, but you're still not going to go to eat at a nice place in Italy before seven.
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