Milan - Amalfi Coast trip days 10 and 11

So much of yesterday was spent traveling by train almost the entire length of Italy, there seemed little to recount, so here's a two-day writeup, much like days 1 and 2.

We left Amalfi Town and the coast with regret - what a wonderful part of the world to experience! One gets a bit casual about it, so much natural beauty filling the eye. We loved our little hotel and the very kind and patient staff; there's just something very special about having a breakfast hostess who has your exact coffee order on the table without being asked, and always remembers your room number. Our last breakfast yesterday morning was lovely; the dining room opened a half hour early, with a full buffet, just to accommodate our early departure time.

The bus ride from Amalfi Town to Salerno takes about an hour and a half, and we had become so used to the near misses between bus and car, bus and bus, bus and retaining wall, and (unbelievably) bus and early morning runner that we scarcely noticed. The sound of the horn now seems perfectly ordinary, and we hardly look up when the bus stops suddenly and begins maneuvering carefully around some obstacle.

Salerno is a largish city, with a very busy port. The ride took us past hundreds of acres of cars waiting to be loaded onto giant ships, and thousands of containers. Past the port, into the city, a sharp left turn and we left the Mediterranean Sea behind.

The train station was very busy, and our group had to climb many stairs to get up to the platform. Of all places to be completely without elevators, this was the worst. We are all senior citizens and had been warned to take care of our own luggage, not to let any seemingly helpful local person take our bags. Whew!  We are all so grateful for the amazing Rafael, who had accompanied us from Amalfi Town and grabbed two very heavy suitcases at a time and bounded up the steps. Some of the men in our party also helped. Otherwise, we might still be in the station in Salerno, unpacking those heavy bags and carrying our belongings up the stairs one armload at a time!

This wasn't our first trip on a high speed rail train system and we were looking forward to having the luxury of first class seats (thanks to our wise director for thinking of this.) After heaving the luggage up the train steps and stowing it away, we collapsed into those wonderful seats and breathed a sigh of relief! As the train pulled away, some lovely angels with a refreshment cart distributed water and some little cookies and we pulled ourselves together.

The distance between Salerno and Milan is almost 500 miles, and we were scheduled to make the trip in about five and a half hours.  Of course there were delays; we had scheduled stops in Naples, Rome, and a couple of other cities before reaching our destination, and I think we had to wait at each station to be able to pull into the platform. We were around 45 minutes late in arriving, then did the whole baggage thing in reverse:  pull the heavy bags out of the little shelves where they were crammed together, get them down the steps, find our guide, then roll those blasted things a couple of very uneven flagstone-paved blocks, crisscrossed with trolley tracks, headed for our private bus.

Here my good luck ended. Catching a wheel of my suitcase in the tracks, I took a header into the sidewalk. It wasn't a bad fall and I had no ill effects, but I found myself looking into the face of a total stranger in a pink sport coat with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, looking pretty concerned. "Grazie, mille grazie," says I. And of course the group all came rushing to my aid - this kind of thing is so embarrassing!  And so we proceeded.

Arriving at the Hotel Fenice, right in the heart of the historic district of Milan, we encountered a truly European phenomenon: one lift. And a tiny one, at that.  So twenty worn-out, mildly crabby old people stood in line for an elevator that would hold one or two people and their luggage at a time. Truly needing some exercise, we just dumped our stuff and headed out.

We checked out the area briefly, then returned, got a recommendation for a nice restaurant just down the street, then headed out again. A lovely dinner, a nice stroll back to our hotel, and to bed.

THIS MORNING, TUESDAY:  A whole new us - although up very early for a 6:45 a.m. breakfast in order to grab taxis and get to the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where DaVinci's Last Supper graces the former dining hall of the Dominican monastery that adjoins the church.  We learned that the Dominican order traditionally places a Last Supper on one end of their refectories and a Crucifixion on the other. DaVinci's work was commissioned by the powerful Sforza family in 1495. The artist painted it directly onto the wall rather than creating a true buon fresco in wet plaster, and as early as six years after the painting's completion it was already beginning to deteriorate. Thus began over 500 years of constant restoration, so that only small fragments of DaVinci's original work remain. Luckily, his students copied the painting more than once, and those copies do remain, giving us a very good idea of what the original looked like.

Visitors are allowed only 15 minutes in the room with the painting as the very presence of humans contributes moisture and damage. But it was well worth traveling thousands of miles and lugging huge suitcases up and down stairs just for this one experience.  There is simply nothing like putting one's eyes on a masterpiece - widely counted as one of the artist's three most outstanding creations, the others being the Mona Lisa and the Vitruvian Man.

After exiting the building, part of our group headed even farther north to Lake Como.  Some of us opted to stay in Milan, and we boarded a Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, headed for the Duomo.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona as I approached the Duomo. The modern Gaudi seems to have taken the Gothic cathedral and melted its spires, played tricks with its statutes, and installed its windows for maximum light and shadow within the space.  The Duomo in Milan plays by the rules, but, as the third largest church in Europe, it is truly breathtaking.

We began our tour by taking the elevator to the first roof terrace, where we wandered among the spires and the gargoyles and saints that adorn each one. There are stairs to go even higher and higher, but they are really steep and scary - we decided to be content with the lower side terrace.

Down in the elevator, out and around the church to the front entrance and we were inside. We explored the interior and also went below the church to the ruins of older churches, all the way back into the days of Roman temples. The practice of building a new place of worship on top of an old ruined one was quite common; in this case, there are several.  The old Roman Empire town of Mediolantum had streets that were ten feet below the level of the streets of today's Milan, and the Roman ruins can be seen through portions of the floor that are clear glass.

After the Duomo, we walked across the street to the Galleria. Built around the same time as the Eiffel Tower, the Galleria is a beautiful example of Victorian modernity. It's very reminiscent of the Crystal Palace in London, Prince Albert's pride and joy.  We sat for a coffee and watched the passing throng - so much fun!

We continued our city tour on the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, stopping for lunch, then riding through the very modern skyscraper district.  Milan is the second-largest city in Italy with almost 1.4 million people and is a growing center for Italian commerce. The towering Palazzo Lombardia houses the offices of the Lombardy district, much like a state capital in the U.S.  There is plenty of room to grow both up and out, while making sure to preserve the treasures of many centuries.

After a brief rest at the hotel, many of our group visited yet another restaurant recommended by our hotel staff.  What a fabulous meal! It was a fitting end to a day that had begun with the Last Supper.

Tomorrow - home again!

Amalfi - 9th day - Ambling on our own

Today was the one day of our trip where there were no planned activities. This is a special characteristic of OLLI Study Abroad; we usually have at least one day, and sometimes a weekend, to figure out what we absolutely don't want to miss, or maybe return to one spot we really want to revisit.  It's good that this free time comes near the end of the trip, as we have gotten very comfortable with our surroundings, the transportation system, and where the best restaurants are.

SO - first on the agenda was to NOT get up at 6:30 a.m.  We have indulged ourselves in retirement by not being in such a hurry to get up in the morning, and the luxury of sleeping in until 8:00 a.m. was really nice. Our hotel offers breakfast until 10:30, so we stretched that out a little, too, with an extra cup of coffee and some lovely visiting with friends.

After breakfast, we went in search of a quiet, shady spot to do some sketching.  Our instructor, the brilliant Bill, had offered a sketch class in OLLI Maymester just to prepare us for this trip. The Amalfi Coast is a haven for artists; there seems to be a sketchable landscape or architectural detail around every corner.

The problem with this plan was the "quiet, shady" part.  It's very hot now, and midmorning offers very little shade. Alternative plan: find someplace cool, then return to the hotel and sit in the lovely area on our floor that has comfortable seating and a window opening onto a beautiful view and try that for the sketching.

There are two museums in Amalfi Town which we have intended to visit and just haven't quite gotten around to, so this morning we checked out the first one, the Arsenal Museum.  This is housed in a tunnel under the main road in what was once the center of Amalfi's busy boat-building industry. Since the 4th century it was quite common for the keels of boats to be laid down inside the tunnels, then pushed across the beach into the water to be completed.

The tunnel was cool and quiet - we were the only visitors so early in the day.  A small but beautifully curated history museum, this venue is a boat person's dream. There are compasses, sextants, octants, charts, maps, tools, even a scale model of the Doge of Venice's barge,complete with oars and a velvet canopy for the Doge himself in the stern.

Amalfi was one of the four major maritime republics of Italy in medieval times, along with Pisa, Genoa, and Venice.  The four cities hold a regatta every year on the weekend of the first Sunday in June, rotating between them. Unfortunately, Amalfi's turn is next year - drat!

We left the museum and headed back to the hotel, where we spent an hour or so doing some sketching.  Since I have neither the ability nor, really, the interest to get very far in this pursuit, I gave it my best with a pretty poor result. I can see so clearly what should be on the paper, but cannot seem to make my brain and my hand cooperate!

Next - lunch. By now it was about 2:30 p.m., and our late breakfast was but a faint memory. We headed for a seaside restaurant we had been meaning to try, split a very good pizza with a little dish of lemon sherbet to share, and just relaxed and watched the ferries and tour boats come and go in the marina.  Today we have a medium-sized cruise ship just off the coast (the Amalfi harbor is simply not large enough or deep enough for that size ship), so crowds have been large, and tenders go to and fro ferrying passengers between ship and shore and back again.  We enjoyed watching and not mixing in!

After lunch, it was on to the second museum that we had decided not to miss, the Museo di Carta, or Paper Museum. Amalfi once had many paper factories and even today the one remaining family business produces some of the finest papers in the world. This family has turned their old factory into a very well-preserved little museum, complete with a guided tour and a paper-making demonstration.

After a somewhat lengthy walk up a fairly steep street, we arrived and joined a tour with a total of five people, just perfect. The young man who showed us around was entertaining, demonstrating how paper was made before trees were used (with fine imported cotton and other cloth), and how the factory, established centuries ago, upgraded its process and its machinery as technology permitted. Through it all, the operation has used water power and natural drying methods. While today the paper that is made for artists and the paper used for writing is made from wood products, the process is very nearly the same as it was in the 14th century. We learned that the Vatican still insists on paper made from cloth, as it lasts for hundreds of years - and that paper comes from this very family's factory! This was fascinating, unhurried, and quite charming. We are very glad we took the trouble to climb that steep street.

Today is our last day in Amalfi Town; we leave very early in the morning for Salerno, where we will catch the train for Milan. The most important feature of any OLLI Study Abroad trip is that we have time: time to get to know an area or a town; time to enjoy the food and wine and friendship of our fellow travelers; time to rest; time to write in our blogs or journals and to look at our photos; and best of all, time to use a little of the language and interact with the people who are such gracious hosts. They are patient with us and seem genuinely glad that we are here.  At OLLI at FSU, we say we "go and grow." That has certainly been true so far on this trip - so Milano, watch out - here we come!