One day more . . .

For our last full day in Milan we had one of Tim's bucket list items in store. A visit to Michaelangelo's The Last Supper was in store, and we were all very excited. It was the one thing he wanted to do during our 2009 trip, and we were not able to, thanks to Dan Brown and his amazingly popular books that created such a hype about this particular painting. In fact, because the painting is so fragile, they only allow 25 people in every 15 minutes, and the tickets are booked 2-3 months in advance. So we made sure to reserve them before we left the states, and for a time we thought was reasonable (9:30 am).

In hindsight, we left the hotel room a little early (7:30 am) to make the trek over to the church. It wasn't that far away, we just wanted to make sure that there would be no reason for us to show up late and miss our entrance window. We ended up getting there a whole hour early, which left us with a little time to kill outside of the church.

We were supposed to get our tickets about 20 min before our tour, and once we had the tickets we could wait in the entrance hall for our guide. As a group we were taken through two entrance rooms which were supposed to decontaminate us (Michelle had visions of a Jetsons type moment with some kind of laser coming down and killing all microbes on her) but it seemed like we just walked through one room, had the doors close behind us, then into another room, with the doors again closing behind us, then we were in the room with the painting. The interesting thing with this painting, and why it is so fragile, is because Michaelangelo painted this painting directly on top of the dried plaster, as opposed to on wet plaster so that the colors could dry with the plasters, thus sealing them in. Because it was done on top of dry plaster, it almost immediately started deteriorating. And because it was done on dry plaster, they also cannot move it from the wall it was painted on. If it was painted in the wet plaster they could remove it from the wall and preserve it in temperature controlled conditions. So to say it is a fragile work of art is an understatement.

And it was impressive to stand in front of. The sad thing is, this is not the only painting in the room. The Last Supper is on one wall, and directly opposite is another painting of Christ crucified painted by . . . some other guy. Both are beautiful works of art, but who is going to pay attention to the other painting when it is in the same room as The Last Supper. Poor other guy.

Once we finished with our tour of The Last Supper we tried to find some shopping centers that were mentioned in some of our guidebooks. We found the area of town they were in, but they must have all closed or moved in the last few years, because none of the places we were looking for were where they were supposed to be. And since it was getting close to noon, we headed over the the La Scalla theater to take a quick tour. We were considering going to an evening show, but there was no opera or ballet playing that evening, and we were self conscious about our clothes. La Scalla is a pretty ritzy local, and we were not sure they would appreciate the zip off cargo pants and rain jackets we were sporting. Plus, with performances beginning at 8 pm, we wanted to be packing for the flight around that time versus attending a theater performance. So a tour of the theater and attached museum was a better option.

The theater itself is huge, 6 rows of seats straight up plus seating on the lower floor. Every surface is covered in red velvet, and there is a massive chandelier in the middle of the room. Apparently the theater was more of a whos who see and be seen kind of event, so though the acoustics are amazing, the purpose of going was not for the performances. Which is one of the reasons why the boxes face each other, so you can see who is there and what they are wearing. There are some seats where you can't see the stage at all. Again, additional reasons why it was probably a good idea that we did not go to an actual performance.

After La Scalla we had a good lunch of pasta at a little cafe and then headed back to the room. Ed decided to take a nap and Tim, Michelle and Diana went out in search of more shopping. There was a street that was recommended, Corso Buenas Ares, which was supposed to have a lot of good shopping. And there were stores lining the streets, but everything was so expensive ($350 euros for a pair of shoes anyone?) so we did not buy anything. We were all ready to splurge a little bit, especially since it was our last night there, but there are some things that are just too silly to even splurge on. Why spend that much on a pair of shoes when I can splurge at home and buy 5 pairs for the same price? So all in all, where the shopping was concerned, we were a little disappointed.

On our way walking home we bumped into a little restaurant with affordable prices and decided to come back with Ed for dinner. We feasted like kings here, especially because the prices were reasonable and the portion sizes were large. If we ever come back to Milan, we will come back here. After dinner it was back to the rooms to pack. We have a 9:30 flight out in the morning, which means leaving the hotel at 5:30 to get to the train station to catch the 6:25 train to the airport. It takes 45 minutes by train to get to the airport, which leaves us with 2 hours to get checked in and make our way through security. And once we get on the plane (with all of our passports this time! :) we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Almost home!