Milano is such a bustling city, people everywhere. We learned that it’s a major centre for finance, fashion and culture (and let’s not forget to mention it’s the home of the football club AC Milan – we see their t-shirts are all over the place).
We decided to start with some culture, visiting Teatro alla La Scala. It’s the world famous opera house that was originally built in 1778, then rebuilt in 1946 after it was severely damaged during WWII. The original theatre was lighted using oil lamps, and they had hundreds of water buckets in rooms nearby in case of fire. So glad we have electricity now. The most renowned opera singers from all over the world come there to perform. We heard the acoustics are ‘the best there is’.
There’s so many private boxes for the audience with plush red velvet, (you can see some in the picture) it makes us feel like kings and queens. Today we watched while they were setting up the stage for a ballet rehearsal, and we watched the dancers for a bit (but we weren’t permitted to take pictures then).
When we left the theatre we discovered a museum all about Leonardo da Vinci. We found out that he was very knowledgeable on so many subjects and was considered a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect – he did it all!
One of his inventions that we found quite interesting was his Mechanical Dragonfly. He created this complex machine to replicate the movement of a dragonfly’s wings by designing wings that rotate around a central pivot. Wow!
We saw so many models of the things he made, and there were copies of his drawings of the plans for them, too. We couldn’t really understand them but we were impressed.
We managed to get tickets to visit inside the Duomo Cathedral this afternoon. It’s massive! A lady told us it’s the largest church in Italy and the 3rd biggest in the world. Building this big cathedral took about 6 centuries – it started in 1386, and the final the last touches to complete it were done in 1965. Over the centuries different architectural designs were put forward to complete sections of the cathedral but often not followed through as bishops changed and such.
Looking around it looks like the finished cathedral kept a similar Gothic style from the first part that was built to the last finishing touches. Great tall pillars, marble floors, and stained glass stories.
Two highlights we noticed were the big pipe organ (you can see on the left) and a stained glass that tells the story of Jesus’ life (on the right).
Well Behaved Kids Travel 